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“ She filled her apron with the crisp, fresh 

COOKIES.” 


RUBY AT SCHOOL 


EJje Folume of tjje Uxibg Series 


BY 

MINNIE E. PAULL 



AUTHOR OF “ruth AND RUBY,” “ RUBY’S UPS AND DOWNS,” 
“prince dimple series,” “DOROTHY DARLING,” ETC. 



PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1894, 

By Estes and Lauriat. 


SInitjersitg ^ress: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A, 


TABLE OF CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER page 

I. Ruby in Mischief 9 

II. Carrying out her Plan 20 

III. Looking for Ruby 32 

IV. Consequences 41 

V. Boarding-School 49 

VI. Preparations 59 

VII. More Preparations 69 

VIII. Ready 84 

IX. The Journey 94 

X. Making Friends . • 104 

XI. An Old Acquaintance 117 

XTI. Making Acquaintance 128 

XIII. Getting Settled 138 

XIV. School 149 

XV. Beginning School 161 

XVI. Maude’s Troubles 173 

XVII. Learning 182 

XVIII. Misadventures 192 


4 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX. Surprises 203 

XX. Persimmons 210 

XXL Maude 220 

XXII. Sunday at School 229 

XXIII. Getting Ready for Christmas . . . 236 

XXIV. Finis 245 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


' - -♦o» 

PAGE 

“ She filled her apron with the crisp, fresh 

COOKIES ” . Frontispiece 


Ruby and her Mother 57 

Ruby meeting Maude at the Station . . . 118 

Ruby writing a Letter Home 141 

“Mrs. Boardman was very patient with the 
spoiled child” 174 

Miss Ketchum and the Caterpillars . . . 204 

“Oh, it has done something to my mouth!” 218 

Reading the Invitation to Agnes 243 




RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


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RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


CHAPTER I. 

RUBY IN MISCHIEF. 

It does seem quite too bad to begin a new Ruby 
book with Ruby in mischief the very first thing ; 
and yet what can I do but tell you about it ? for 
it is very probable that if she had not been in 
this particular piece of mischief, this story would 
never have been written. ‘‘ Nobody but Ruby 
would ever have thought of such a thing,” Ann 
exclaimed, when it was discovered, and it really 
did seem as if Ruby thought of naughty things 
to do that would never have entered any one 
else’s head. 

Ruby had certainly been having one of her 
bad streaks,” as Nora called her particularly 
mischievous times, and perhaps this was because 
Ruby had been left to herself more than she had 
ever been in all her life before. 

Mamma was sick, and she was only able to 
have Ruby come into her room when the little 


10 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


girl was willing to be very quiet and move about 
gently, so as not to disturb her ; and she knew 
very little of what Ruby was about in the long 
hours which she spent in play. 

All summer Ruby had been imnning wild, 
coming into the house only to eat her meals, or 
towards evening nestling down beside mamma, 
to talk to her for a little while about what she 
had been doing all day. I am afraid it was not 
very often that Ruby told her of the many things 
she had been doing of which she knew mamma 
would not approve at all. 

When Ruby went over to Mrs. W arren’s house 
to visit Ruthy, Mrs. Warren tried to have her 
do as she wished her own little girl to do, but 
she found it a very much harder matter to 
govern quick-tempered, impulsive Ruby than it 
was to guide her own gentle little daughter, and 
she often sighed as she thought how distressed 
Ruby’s mamma would be if she knew how self- 
willed and mischievous her little daughter was 
growing without her mother’s car6. 

Ruby’s papa was very busy with his patients, 
and when he was at home he spent most of his 
time in the invalid’s room, so he did not have 
any idea how much the little girl needed some 
one to look after her, and see that she did not 
get into mischief. 


RUBY IN MISCHIEF. 


11 


Ann did her best to take care of Ruby, but 
she had more work to do than usual, so she had 
very little time to keep watch of the little girl ; 
and besides. Ruby would not mind Ann unless 
she said she would tell Dr. Harper if Ruby was 
naughty, and Ann did not like to complain of 
Ruby if she could help it. 

Altogether you can see that Ruby had a pretty 
good opportunity to be just as naughty as she 
wanted to be ; and every day it did seem as 
if she thought of more mischievous things to 
do than she had ever done in all her life put 
together before. 

Ruby was having a very nice time this after- 
noon all by herself. It would have been nicer 
to have had Ruthy to help her enjoy it, but Mrs. 
Warren was not willing to let Ruthy go over to 
Mrs. Harper’s, now that there was no one to see 
what the two little girls were about. Ruthy 
could be trusted not to get into any mischief by 
herself, but sometimes she yielded to Ruby’s 
coaxing when she had devised some piece of 
mischief, and then no one knew what the two 
little girls would do next. 

Some carpenters had been at work down by the 
stable, building a new hen-house, and Ruby had 
made a playhouse for herself with the boards they 
had left. She had leaned them up against the low 


12 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


branch of an old tree, with^Ann’s help, for the 
boards were rather too heavy for her to move 
alone, and so she had a tent-shaped house of boards 
in which she thought it was great fun to play. 

Ruby’s favorite story was the “ Swiss Family’ 
Robinson,” and she thought that no greater hap- 
piness could befall any one than to be cast away 
upon a desert island. As long as there did not 
seem to be any prospect of a desert island before 
her, when the largest piece of water she had 
ever seen in her life was the small shallow pond 
where the, boys got water-lilies in summer, and 
skated in winter, she thought the next best 
thing would be to live in this little house, and 
not go home at all, except to see her mother. 

She was very sure that the rest of the family 
would not approve of this plan at all, so she did 
not say anything to them about it, but deter- 
mined to try it and see how slie liked it, without 
running any chances of being forbidden. 

One day, when she knew Ann was busy up in 
her mother’s room, and no one would see what 
she was doing, she ran up to the garret, and 
brought down a pair of blankets, an old com- 
forter, and the little pillow that belonged to the 
crib in which she had slept when she was a 
baby. She carried all these out to her little 
playhouse in the yard, and has only just tucked 


RUBY IN MISCHIEF. 


13 


away the last corner of the comforter out of 
sight, when she heard the sound of wheels as 
her father’s buggy drove into the yard. 

Ruby ran out to meet him, afraid that he 
might come and look into her little wooden tent, 
and see what she had taken from the house. 
She was very sure that he would not at all ap- 
prove of her plan of spending the night out 
there alone. She slipped her hand into his, 
and walked up to the house with him, and then 
ran back to her play. 

After dinner she chose a time when Nora 
would not be in the kitchen, and carried some 
provisions down to her little house ; for though 
she wanted to imitate the Swiss Family Robin- 
son as far as possible, she was not sure that she 
would be able to find meals for herself as readily 
as they did ; so, though biscuits and cookies were 
not at all the sort of food shipwrecked people 
generally eat, she thought that she had better 
lay in a supply of them, particularly as there 
were no kindly cocoanut or bread-fruit trees 
growing at hand. 

She filled her apron with the crisp fresh 
cookies which Ann had just made, and with 
biscuit from the stone crock, and then spying a 
little turnover which she was sure Ann had 
made for her, she added that to her store. 


14 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


It began to look quite like a castaway’s tent, 
Ruby imagined, as she sat down in her little 
house and looked around. To be sure, you 
would hardly expect any one wrecked upon a 
desert island to have such a comfortable roof of 
boards over his head, and certainly one would not 
find a supply of warm, dry bed-clothing at hand, 
nor fresh cookies ; but Ruby was quite satisfied, 
and she thought it would be great fun to spend 
the night out there all by herself, and imagine 
herself in the midst of a forest all alone. She 
shut her eyes, and as the wind rustled the branches 
of the tree, she pretended that she heard the 
waves breaking upon the shore of her desert 
island, and that chattering monkeys were jump- 
ing about over her head in the branches of great 
palm and tall cocoanut-trees. 

If Ruthy could only be cast away with her it 
would be ever so much nicer, for then she would 
not have to enjoy it all by herself ; but she re- 
flected that it was just as well that Ruthy could 
not come over and play, for she probably would 
be afraid to sleep out there, and would cry and 
want to go into the house just when the play 
grew the most interesting. 

No thought of fear entered venturesome Ruby’s 
mind. It would be an easy matter for her to 
slip out of the house after she was supposed to 


RUBY IN MISCHIEF. 


15 


be fast asleep in her trundle bed, which was not 
beside her mother’s bed any longer, but in a 
room by itself. Ruby did not know that the 
the last thing her father did every night before 
he went to bed, was to go and take a look at his 
little girl, and see that she was sleeping com- 
fortably ; and very often he went into her room 
in the evening, soon after she had gone to sleep. 

Of course she knew that she was going to do 
a naughty thing, but I am sorry to say that Ruby 
did not very often let that interfere with anything 
she wanted to do now, she had her own way so 
much. 

She was so excited over her plan for the night 
that she was very quiet all the rest of the after- 
noon, and Ann said rather suspiciously, — 

“ You ’re up to some new mischief, Ruby 
Harper, I ’ll venture, or you would never be so 
quiet all at once. I know you. Now do be a 
good girl, and don’t keep worrying your poor ma 
so about you.” 

“Never you mind what I am going to do,” 
answered Ruby, pertly, and just then Ann saw 
that her cookies were missing. 

“ Well, where on earth are all my cookies?” 
she exclaimed. “ Now, Ruby Harper, you tell 
me this very minute what you have been doing 
with them. I know just as well as anything 


16 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


that you never ate such a lot as that, and I don’t 
see what you could have been doing with them. 
You go and get them and fetch them back to me 
right away.” 

Ruby made a face at her and darted away. 
She was not going to bring the cookies back 
nor tell where they were. What would she do 
when she was shipwrecked if she did not have 
a store of provisions in her hut, as she called her 
little house. 

She knew it would not do to tell Nora about 
her plan, and she was so full of it that she felt 
as if she could not keep it to herself any longer, 
so she ran over to Ruthy’s house. 

She found Ruthy playing with her paper dolls 
on the wide back porch, and for a few minutes 
she pretended that she had come over to see her 
paper nieces and nephews, for the children always 
called themselves aunts to each other’s dolls. 

“ Oh, I have got a plan to tell you about, 
Ruthy,” she said presently. “ I don’t want any 
one to hear me telling you about it, so let ’s go 
down under the apple-tree, with the dolls.” 

Ruthy gathered up her children, and in a few 
moments the two little girls were sitting side by 
side on the low bench, which Ruthy’s father had 
put there just for their comfort. 

“ It ’s the grandest plan,” began Ruby. 


KUBY IN MISCHIEF. 


17 


“ Am I in it, too ? ” asked Ruthy, half wist- 
fully and half fearfully. She always liked to 
to be in Ruby’s plans, and felt a little left out 
when her little friend wanted to do without her, 
and yet sometimes Ruby’s plans were so very 
extraordinary that she did not enjoy helping to 
carry them out at all. 

“ Well, you could be in it, only you see you 
can’t very well,” Ruby answered in a rather 
mixed up fashion. 

“ Why can’t I ? ” Ruthy asked. 

“ Well, I ’ll tell you all about it, and then you 
will see that you couldn’t very well,” Ruby 
answered. But first of all you must promise 
me honest true, black and blue, that you will 
never, never breathe a word of it to any one.” 

“ Not even to mamma ? ” asked Ruthy, who 
always felt better when she told her mother all 
about everything. 

‘‘No, not to anyone in all the wide world,” 
Ruthy answered. “ I won ’t tell you a single 
word unless you promise, and you will be awfully 
sorry if I don’t tell you, for this is the most 
splendid plan I ever made up in all my life. It 
is just like a book.” 

Ruthy’s curiosity overcame her scruples about 
knowing something which she could not tell her 
mother. 


2 


18 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“ All right, I won’t tell a single person,” she 
said, earnestly. “ Tell me what it is.” . 

“ Promise across your heart,” Ruby insisted, for 
just then the little girls had a fashion of think- 
ing that promising across their hearts made a 
promise more binding than any other form of 
words. 

“ I promise, honest true, black and blue, 
’crost my heart,” Ruthy said very earnestly, 
and then the two heads were put close together 
while Ruby whispered her wonderful secret. 

No one could have heard them, not even the 
birds in their nests up in the tree, if she had 
spoken aloud, but a secret always seemed so 
delightfully mysterious when it was whispered, 
that she rarely told one aloud. 

“I am going to be cast away on a desert 
island,” she said, and Ruthy ’s blue eyes opened 
to their widest extent. 

“ Why, how can you, when there is n’t any 
desert island anywhere near here for miles and 
miles ?” she exclaimed. 

“ Oh, you are so stupid,” Ruby exclaimed 
impatiently. “ Of course I mean to pretend I 
am cast away. I am going to pretend that down 
by the barn is a desert island, and that little 
house I have built with boards is my hut, and 
I am going to sleep out there all by myself 


RUBY IN MISCHIEF. 


19 


to-night, and I have some provisions and every- 
thing all ready.” 

“ But will you dare stay out there all alone 
when it gets dark ? ” asked Ruthy in awed tones, 
feeling quite satisfied that she was left out of 
this plan, for she knew she should never dare to 
do such a thing, no matter how much Ruby 
might want her to join her. 


CHAPTER 11. 


CARRYING OUT HER PLAN. 

Op course I would dare,” answered Ruby, posi- 
tively. I am not such a coward as you are, 
Ruthy. You see, even if your mamma would let 
you come over and stay at my house, so you 
could be in the plan, it would n’t be of any use, 
for it would be just like you to get afraid as soon 
as it was dark, and then you would cry and want 
to go back into the house.” 

“ I am afraid I would,” Ruthy answered 
meekly, not resenting the accusation of coward- 
ice. “ I should think you would be afraid too. 
Ruby ; and then what will your papa and mamma 
think when they find out in the night that you 
are gone.” 

They won’t find out,” answered Ruby, easily 
disposing of that objection. ‘‘ You see I shall 
wait till after they think I have gone to sleep to 
go out to my hut. I will get most undressed 
to-night at bed-time and then put my nightie on 
over the rest of my clothes, and when papa 


CARRYING OUT HER PLAN. 21 

comes in to kiss me good-night he will never 
think of my getting up again. Then I will creep 
downstairs as softly as a mouse, and out into 
the yard. It will be such fun to roll up in the 
blankets, and pretend that they are the skins of 
wild animals, and I shall lie awake for ever so 
long listening to hear if any bears come around, 
or lions. Oh, it will be such fun,” and Ruby’s 
eyes sparkled. Ruthy looked troubled. 

“ I don’t think it will be a bit nice,” she said 
presently. ‘‘ I don’t believe your mamma would 
like it one single bit ; and suppose somebody 
should carry you off when you are out there all 
by yourself.” 

“You just can’t make me afraid, I guess, 
Ruthy Warren,” sniffed Ruby, scornfully. “ You 
are such a ’fraid-cat that you never want to do 
anything in all your life but play paper dolls. I 
might have known you would n’t see what fun it 
is to play Swiss Family Robinson. Now don’t 
you dare tell any one a single word about it. 
Remember you promised across your heart.” 

“ I sha’n’t tell,” Ruthy answered, “ but I do 
wish you would n’t do it. Ruby. Why, I shall 
be as scared as anything if I wake up in the 
night and think that you are out there in your 
house all alone in the pitch dark. I should be 
so frightened if I was you that I would just 


22 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


scream and scream till some one heard me and 
came and got me.” 

“ I would n’t have such a baby as you to stay 
with me,” Ruby said. “ I am going to do it just 
as sure as anything, Ruthy Warren, and if you 
breathe a word of it to any one so I don’t get 
let to do it, I will never, never speak to you 
again as long as I live and breathe.” 

“ Of course I sha’n’t tell when I promised,” 
Ruthy replied, a little hurt at Ruby’s doubting 
her word. “ Maybe you won’t do it after all, 
though. Perhaps when it gets dark you will be 
frightened.” 

“ I never get frightened,” Ruby said, tossing 
her head. “Now I must go home, Ruthy. 
Come and walk part way with me, won’t you ? ” 

“ I ’ll ask mamma,” Ruthy answered, and 
gathering up her paper dolls she ran into the 
house, coming back in a few minutes with two 
red-cheeked apples for the little girls to eat on 
their way, and permission to go as far as the 
corner with Ruby. 

Ruby could talk and think of nothing but her 
great plan for the night, and Ruthy pleaded with 
her in vain to give it up. The little girl was so 
troubled about it that she wished Ruby had not 
told her about it. She did not see how she 
would ever be able to go to bed that night, and 


CARRYING OUT HER PLAN. 23 

go to sleep, thinking of her little friend out 
alone in her little house down by the barn. In 
the bottom of her heart she wished that Ruby 
would be caught by Ann on her way out of the 
house, and prevented from carrying out her 
plan, but she did not dare whisper this wish to 
Ruby, as she knew how angry it would make 
her to think of her plans being thwarted. 

By the time Ruby reached home another plan 
occurred to her busy brain. Nora was not far 
from right when she said that Ruby could think 
up more mischief than any three children could 
carry out. Suppose it should be cold in the 
night. Ruby could not quite remember what 
time in the year it was when the Swiss Family 
Robinson were shipwrecked, but she knew they 
had to make a fire. She would get some shav- 
ings and som.e little sticks, and get a fire all 
ready to light in her hut, and then if it should 
be cold, and she should want to light a fire, it 
would be all ready. 

This new idea added a great charm to the 
thought of staying out there all night. She 
was quite sure that she would need a fire, and 
she bustled around very busily when she got 
home, gathering up shavings from the place 
where the carpenters had been at work, and 
getting little sticks to lay upon them so that 


24 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


the fire would burn up readily. Then she went 
back to the house, and going up into the spare 
room, took down the match-box from the tall 
chest of drawers, and carried it out to the hut 
where it would be all ready for the night. 
When this was done she felt as if she could 
hardly wait for the sun to go down and bed- 
time to come. She was so excited over her 
grand plan that her eyes shone like stars, and 
her cheeks were so flushed that when her father 
came in, he put his hand on her cheeks to see 
whether she had any fever. If he had only 
known what a naughty plan was in Ruby’s mind, 
he would have been more sorry than to have had 
his little girl sick. 

Of course I need not tell you that Ruby knew 
just how wrong it was to plan something which 
she knew very well her father and mother would 
not permit for a moment if they knew of it. 
But in all the years that you have known her 
she had not grown any less self-willed, I am 
sorry to say, and so she thought of nothing but 
of getting her own way, whether it was naughty 
or not. 

The longest day will have an end at last, and 
though it seemed to Ruby as if a day had never 
passed so slowly, yet finally the sun went down. 
Ruby had had her supper, had kissed mamma 


CAERYING OUT HER PLAN. 


25 


good-night, and bed-time had come. She took 
off her shoes, and her dress, and then slipping 
her little white night-dress on over her other 
clothes, she scrambled into bed, and waited for 
her papa to come and kiss her good-night, her 
heart beating so loudly with excitement that she 
was afraid he would hear it, and wonder what 
was the matter with her. I think if it had been 
her mother who had come in she would have 
wondered why only Ruby’s dress and shoes were 
to be seen, and why the little girl had such a 
flushed, guilty look, and held the bed-clothes 
tucked up so tightly under her chin ; but Ruby’s 
papa did not notice any of these things, so Ruby 
was not hindered from carrying out her naughty 
plan. 

She waited for what seemed to her a very 
long time, and then she heard the wheels of 
her father’s buggy going out of the yard, and 
knew he had gone somewhere to see a patient. 
She was glad, for that made one person less 
who would be likely to hear her when she 
went out. Her mamma she was sure would 
not hear her, for her door was closed, and if 
she could only get past the kitchen door with- 
out Ann discovering her, she would be safe. 
When she could not hear any one stirring, she 
got up and crept softly over to the door. The 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


house was very still, so even the rustle of her 
night-dress seemed to make a noise as she 
stepped along the hall. Down the stairs she 
crept like a little thief, and at last she reached 
the door. Ann had been sitting with her back 
to the kitchen door reading when Ruby went 
past, so she had not noticed the little figure 
gliding along. 

Ruby stepped through the open door out 
upon the back porch. It was dark, and the 
noise of the tree toads and frogs seemed to 
make it more lonely than she had thought it 
would be. For a moment she was almost 
willing to give up her plan and go back to 
bed like a good little girl, but then she 
thought of Ruthy, and how she would hate 
to confess to her the next day that she had 
given up her plan after all ; so she went on. 
Ruby was not inclined to be timid about any- 
thing, so, although it did not seem as delight- 
ful as she had imagined it would, yet she was 
not afraid as she ran down the yard to her 
little house. She was glad, however, that it 
was not upon a desert island. It was very 
nice to know that she was not surrounded by 
great rolling waves on every side, and that if 
she wished to go back to her home and her 
mother she could do so in a very few minutes. 


CARRYING OUT HER PLAN. 27 

She crept into her hut, and finding the bed- 
clothes rolled herself up in them. Oh, why 
was n’t it as nice as she had thought it would 
be ? Ruby was provoked with herself for wish- 
ing that she was back in the house curled 
up in her own little bed, instead of being out 
here in the night alone. She would not give 
up and go back, though, she said over and 
over again to herself. No ; she had said that 
she would stay out all night, and she meant 
to keep her word, whether she liked it or not. 

If Ruby had only been half as determined 
to keep her good resolutions as she was to 
keep her bad ones, she would never have found 
herself in such scrapes. 

She rolled herself up in a little ball and drew 
the blanket closely about her, — not because she 
was cold, but because it seemed less lonesome. 
While she was listening to all the music of a 
summer’s night, she fell asleep, and dreamed a 
very remarkable dream about sleeping in a nest 
swung from a cocoanut-tree, with a monkey for 
a bed-fellow. 

In the mean time very unexpected events were 
taking place at the house. A little while after 
Ruby’s father had gone out to see his patient 
a carriage drove up from the station with a 
visitor. 


28 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


It was Kuby’s Aunt Emma, who had come to 
make a visit of a few days, and who had written 
to say that she was coming, but had only discov- 
^ered at the last moment that her letter had not 
been mailed in time for her brother to receive it 
before her arrival. 

After she had had a little talk with Ruby’s 
mother, she was very impatient to see her little 
niece. 

“ I wish I could have reached here in time to 
see her before she went to sleep,” she said. 

“ I am afraid if she woke up now and found 
you were here she would not go to sleep again 
all night,” said Ruby’s mother. 

“ I won’t wake her, but I will just go and peep 
at her while she is asleep,” said Aunt Emma ; 
and lighting a candle, she followed Ann into 
the room where Ruby was supposed to be fast 
asleep in her trundle-bed. 

Of course there was no Ruby there. The 
little girl was curled up in her blankets out in 
the yard, under her little tent of boards ; and 
there was only a little crumpled place in the 
pillow to show where her head had nestled. 

“ Why, where can she be, I wonder ? ” said 
Ann in surprise. 

‘‘ Hush ! don’t let her mother hear, or she 
will be worried,” said Aunt Emma, who knew 


CARRYING OUT HER PLAN. 


29 


how easily the invalid would be alarmed. “Per- 
haps she has gone downstairs to get a drink of 
water or something.” 

“ No, I am sure she has n’t been downstairs, 
for 1 have been sitting right there in the kitchen 
all the evening,” said Ann, positively. “ Oh, 
Miss Emma, she has got to be the witchiest 
girl ever you did see. She ’s always up to some 
piece of mischief or another, and it ’s more than 
any one but her mother can do to keep her in 
order. I try my best, but it ain’t any use at all. 
She does just as she likes for all of me, unless I 
tell her father ; and then it worries him so that 
I don’t like to, when he has so much else on his 
mind.” 

“I should like to know where she is now,” 
said Miss Emma, looking very much puzzled. 
“ There comes her father,” she went on, as she 
heard the sound of wheels coming into the yard. 
“ Perhaps he will know.” She went downstairs 
softly, and met the doctor who, was very much 
surprised at this unexpected visitor. After he 
he had told her how glad he was to see her, she 
told him that Puby was not upstairs in her bed, 
and that Ann did not know where she was, and 
asked him if he knew what had become of the 
little girl. 

He looked very anxious. 


30 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


« Why, no, I have not the least idea,” he said 
gravely. “ I kissed her good-night just before I 
went out to make a call, and she was all right 
in her bed then. I do not see what could have 
become of her. I hope we can keep it from her 
mother, or she will be sadly frightened if she 
hears Ruby is not to be found at this hour of 
the night.” 

Of course no one could imagine where Ruby 
had gone, and although they hunted all over the 
house, there was not a trace of the little girl to 
be seen. 

“ Perhaps she has been walking in her sleep,” 
suggested Aunt Emma. ‘‘ She may have wan- 
dered downstairs and out into the yard while 
she was asleep, and been too frightened when 
she woke up to know how to find her way back 
into the house. I have heard of children doing 
such things.” 

‘‘But she couldn’t have gone past the door 
without my seeing her,” said Ann, very posi- 
tively. “ I have been sitting right there in the 
kitchen all the evening, and I am sure T would 
have heard her, if she had gone past. I never 
knew Ruby to walk in her sleep; but then I 
would n’t say she might n’t have done it this 
time, only I know she did n’t walk past the 
kitchen door and go out that way.” 


CARRYING OUT HER PLAN. 


31 


“ Could she have gone out the front door ? ” 
asked Aunt Emma. 

The doctor shook his head. 

“No; that would be too heavy for her to 
open alone, after it was locked up for the night. 
I fastened it myself before I went out, and it is 
fastened now; so she could not have gone out 
that way. There is her mother calling. I hope 
she will not ask for Ruby, She must not have 
this anxiety if we can spare her.’’ 


CHAPTER III. 


LOOKING FOR RUBY. 

People who are sick are very quick to hear 
when anything is wrong, and as soon as the 
doctor opened the door of the sick-room, Ruby’s 
mamma asked anxiously, — 

“ Is anything wrong with Ruby ? Where is 
she?” 

Just then the only possible explanation of her 
absence occurred to the doctor, and he answered, 

“ She is not in her bed, my dear, and I am 
afraid she has run away and gone over to Ruthy’s 
to spend the night. You know she asked per- 
mission to stay all night the last time she went 
over there for supper, and I suppose she has 
made up her mind to go without permission. It 
is too bad in her to act this way and worry you. 
I will drive over after her right away, and bring 
her back in a few minutes.” 

‘‘ I don’t believe she would go all the way up 
to Ruthy’s after dark,” said her mother, in 
anxious tones. “ I am afraid something has 


LOOKING FOR RUBY. 


33 


happened to her, though I cannot imagine what 
it could be.” 

“Don’t think about it till I bring her back 
safe and sound,” said the doctor as he hurried 
away. 

But it was a great deal easier to give this 
advice than to follow it. Ruby’s mamma could 
not help worrying about her little girl, and while 
naughty little Ruby was curled up in her blan- 
kets, sleeping as sweetly as a little bird in its 
nest, her mamma was listening to the wheels of 
the doctor’s buggy, rolling out of the yard, with 
a beating heart, and wondering what had hap- 
pened to the little girl who had gone to bed not 
two hours ago. 

It did not take very long to drive over to 
Ruthy’s house, and the doctor did not wait to 
hitch staid old Dobbin, but jumped out and ran 
up the steps to the house, anxious to know 
whether Ruby was really there. Although he 
was quite sure that she must be, yet he was im- 
patient to satisfy himself. 

“ Is Ruby here ? ” were his first words, when 
Mr. Warren opened the door. 

“ Why, no,” Mr. Warren answered. “ I don’t 
think she has been here to-day.” 

“ Oh, yes, she was here a little while this 
afternoon,” said Mrs. Warren coming to the 
3 


34 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


door. “ Why, what is the matter, doctor ? 
Is n’t Ruby at home ? ” 

“ No, she went to bed all right, but a little 
while ago when her aunt came and went to look 
for her, she was gone,” said the doctor, feeling 
as if he did not know now where to turn to look 
for the little runaway ; for where could she 
possibly be at that time of night, if she had not 
come over to visit her little friend ? “ Where 
can the child be ? ” 

“ Is n’t she in the house somewhere ? ” asked 
Mrs. Warren. 

“ No, we have looked through the house,” the 
doctor answered. “ I don’t know what will be- 
come of her mother, if I have to go back without 
Ruby. No one could have come into the house 
and stolen her, that is certain, and yet I cannot 
conceive where she could have gone to at this 
hour in the evening. This is dreadful.” 

Neither Mr. Warren nor his wife could sug- 
gest any place to look for Ruby. It was cer- 
tainly a very strange thing that she could have 
disappeared from her bed after dark, without 
any one knowing anything about it. The doctor 
got into his buggy again and started towards 
home, wondering what he should do when he 
had to tell Ruby’s mother that her little girl 
could not be found. 


LOOKING FOR RUBY. 


35 


If Ruby could have known what a heartache 
her father had, as he drove slowly homeward, 
dreading to take such sad news back with him, 
I am quite sure the little girl would have tried 
to be good, and not make those who loved her 
so anxious about her. 

In the mean time. Ruby had stirred uneasily 
in her sleep, and at last when the owl who lived 
in the tall elm-tree close by, gave a long, mourn- 
ful hoot, she awakened, and sat up, wondering, 
as she rubbed her eyes open, where she was. 

The cool evening breeze fanned her face, and 
the stars looked down upon her, and all at once 
Ruby remembered where she had gone to sleep. 
In the very depths of her heart she wished that 
she was back again in her own little bed, with 
her head on her pillow, and the white spread 
drawn over her. It seemed so very, very deso- 
late to be down here at the end of the garden 
all alone, with a long, dark walk before her if 
she should go back to the house ; and she began 
to think tliat the Swiss Family Robinson had a 
better time than Robinson Crusoe, since they 
were all together, and poor Crusoe must often 
have been very lonely all by himself, before his 
man Friday came to live with him. 

If Ruthy had only been there. Ruby thought 
she would have made a very good man Friday, 


36 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


but she was quite sure that nothing would have 
persuaded Ruthy to stay out of doors at night. 

“ I am not a little ’f raid-cat like Ruthy,” said 
Ruby to herself, trying to pretend that she was 
not at all lonely nor frightened. “ I would just 
as lief stay out here every night. I wonder 
what time it is. I guess it must he nearly 
morning. I was asleep just hours and hours, I 
think. I am dreadfully hungry, so it must be 
ever so long since I had my supper. I had 
better eat some provisions, maybe.” 

Ruby was not really very hungry, but she 
wanted to be as much like the Swiss Family 
Robinson as possible, so she sat up and sleepily 
nibbled at some cookies. 

“ I don’t think these are very nice cookies,” 
she said, as she tried to keep up the pretence 
that she was very hungry. “ I wish they were 
cocoanuts. They would be ever so much nicer.” 

“ I wish this was a big, tall cocoanut-tree,” 
Ruby went on. “ And that it was just full of 
cocoanuts, and that some monkeys had a nest 
in it, and would throw me down cocoanuts 
whenever I wanted one. It would hurt if they 
hit me on the head though. I guess I would 
have to live under another tree, so as to be sure 
the cocoanuts would n’t drop on me. I wonder 
if monkeys live in nests. Of course they don’t 


LOOKING FOR RUBY. 


37 


live in bird’s-nests, but maybe they take sticks up 
into trees, and make little nests, and — and — ’’ 

Ruby nodded so hard that she woke up again. 
She had nearly gone to sleep sitting straight up, 
she was so sleepy. 

“ I don’t want to go to sleep just yet,” she 
said. “ I am going to stay awake, so. I might 
just as well be in bed as keep asleep out here 
all the time. I guess I will make a fire, and 
then that will be just like a real castaway.” 

The sticks and matches were all ready, and 
Ruby struck a match and lighted the little fire. 
It was not a very large pile of sticks, and Ruby 
had not thought that it would make much of a 
blaze, but the shavings underneath, and the light, 
dry sticks upon the top, were very ready to take 
fire and make as large a blaze as they could, so 
Ruby was quite dismayed at the size of her 
fire. 

She was a little frightened, too. She had 
made the fire in the front of her little house, 
and she could not get past it to go out. The 
fence made a strong back wall to the house, over 
which she could not climb, and she could not 
possibly get away from the smoke and heat with- 
out going so near the fire that she was sure her 
night-gown would take fire. 

Suppose the boards that she used in making 


38 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


the house sliould take fire, what would become 
of her then. I do not wonder that Ruby was 
frightened when she looked at the little bonfire, 
crackling and snapping away as cheerily as if a 
frightened child was not watching it with tears 
in her eyes. 

“Oh, I shall be all burned up,’’ she cried. 
“ And no one will ever know what became of 
me. My mamma will cry and cry and wonder 
where Ruby is, but she will never think that I 
came down here and made a fire, and burned 
myself all entirely up. Oh, oh, I do wish I 
had n’t. I do wish I had n’t. I wonder if I 
screamed and screamed for papa, whether he 
would come down and hear me and come down 
and get me out. Perhaps he could n’t. I don’t 
see how anybody could get past that dreadful 
blaze. He would just have to see me all burn- 
ing up and he could n’t do one thing to save me. 
Oh, how sorry he would be,” and Ruby cried 
harder than ever at the thought of her father’s 
distress. 

The smoke made her eyes smart and sting, 
and it choked her so that she coughed and 
strangled, and I need not tell you that she would 
have given anything in the world to have been 
back in her own little bed again. 

Just then papa drove through the gate, and 


LOOKING FOR RUBY. 


39 


you can imagine how much surprised he was to 
see a fire under some boards down at the end of 
the yard. He jumped out of the buggy and went 
down there as quickly as he could, to find out 
what it was. 

He looked into the little house, and there be- 
yond the fire, crying so hard that she did not 
see nor hear him, was the little girl he had been 
looking for. 

“ Why, Ruby ! ” he exclaimed in amazement ; 
and Ruby looked up, as much surprised at find- 
ing her father there, as he had been ''a second 
before when he saw her. 

“ Oh, papa, papa, must I be all burned up ? ” 
she cried, but papa was already answering that 
question. He threw down the boards out of 
which Ruby had made her house, and striding 
past the fire, lifted her in his arms, and started 
up to the house with her. 

He was so glad that he had found her, and 
could take her back to her mother safe and un- 
harmed, that he forgot everything else, and of 
course. Ruby was happy at being in those strong 
arms, when she had been so sure that she was 
going to be burned up ; and all the way up to 
the house she resolved, as she had so many times 
before, that she would surely, surely he good now, 
for whenever she was naughty, and did things 


40 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


that she knew would not please her father and 
mother, she always got into trouble, and was 
not half as happy as she would have been if 
she had tried to please them. After all, papas 
and mammas did know what was best for little 
girls. 


CHAPTER lY. 


CONSEQUENCES. 

Ruby really had very good reason to be sorry 
for this last piece of naughtiness. By the time 
her papa carried her into the house they found 
that her mamma was very ill with the anxiety 
about Ruby, and her papa just let her kiss the 
white face once, and then he hurried her away 
to bed, so that he might do all that he could for 
the invalid. 

Ruby was very much surprised to find every 
one up in the house. She had been so sure that 
it was nearly morning that she could not under- 
stand how it was that, after all she had been 
doing, and the long sleep she had had out in her 
little cabin, it should only be a little after ten 
o’clock. 

It was some time before Ruby went to sleep, 
and in that quiet time she had a good oppor- 
tunity to think how very naughty she had been. 
“ I wish I had n’t played Swiss Family Robin- 
son,” she said to herself. ‘‘ I wish I had never, 
never heard anything about that old book. I 


42 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


should never have thought of it by myself, and 
then, of course, I would never have done such a 
thing. And now, it is just perfectly dreadful. I 
know papa thinks I have been too bad to love 
any more, and mamma is so sick, and Ann 
looked as cross at me as if she would just like to 
bite my head off, and I most know she will scold 
and scold at me to-morrow, and there. Aunt 
Emma had to come the first time I ever did 
such a thing, and now, I suppose she thinks I run 
away every night, and I never, never did before, 
and it isn’t fair, so;” and Ruby cried softly. 
“ Oh, dear, I do wish I had n’t, and it don’t make 
the least speck of difference how many times I 
wish I had n’t now, ’cause it is too late. I wish 
I always knew beforehand how sorry I would be, 
and then I wouldn’t do things that make me 
feel so dreadful bad. I wish I knew how mamma 
is. If she was n’t sick, she would come and love 
me, and make me feel better; she always does 
when I have been doing things. It is n’t my fault 
if I do bad things. When my mamma ’s sick, 
how can I help doing things. I should n’t think 
anybody would ’spect me to mind Ann, cause 
she ’s so cross, and anyway she is n’t my mamma, 
so she need n’t pretend that she can tell me when 
I must n’t do things. I won’t let anybody but 
my mamma tell me what I must n’t do, ’cept may- 


CONSEQUENCES. 


43 


be my papa. I think it will be too bad for peo- 
ple to scold me for going out to-night, when I 
never had one bit a nice time. I can tell Ruthy 
I went, though, anyway, and she will be be just as 
’sprised, and she will say, ‘ I don’t see how you 
ever dared. Ruby Harper.’ Ruthy would n’t dare 
go out in the dark. She is a real little ’fraid-cat, 
that is what she is. I ’m glad I am not so ’fraid 
of everything.” 

Ruby flounced about upon her pillow. She 
wanted to find fault with some one else, so as 
not to have to listen to what her conscience was 
telling her about herself, but it was not of much 
use to try to find fault with gentle little Ruthy. 
Ruby knew that even if she had not been afraid 
of going out in the dark, she would never have 
done anything that she knew would make her 
mamma and papa feel so badly. Ruthy did 
things sometimes that she ought not to do, and 
sometimes forgot her tasks, but it was rarely, if 
ever, that she deliberately planned a piece of 
mischief ; and if she was concerned in one, it 
was almost always because Ruby had coaxed her 
into it. 

“ If Ann was n’t so cross, I don’t believe I 
would do so many things,” Ruby went on, still 
trying to find some one else to blame. “I 
never did so many things when mamma was 


44 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


well. I am going to ask her to send Ann away, 
’cause it is her fault.” 

But Ruby knew better than that. It was be- 
cause she was so very sure that it had been all 
her fault that she had done something that she 
had known perfectly well would displease her 
mamma and papa if they should know it, and 
that had worried her papa and made her mamma 
worse, that she was so anxious to lay the blame 
upon some one else. 

She turned her pillow over and over, and 
thumped it at last, she grew so impatient 
because she could not go to sleep. 

“ I don’t think it is very pleasant to stay 
awake all night, and keep thinking about 
things,” she said. “ Oh, dearie me, I do wish 
I was asleep. I wonder if people think when they 
are asleep. They can’t tell whether they do think 
or not, I s’pose, ’cause they ’re asleep and don’t 
know it. I wish I was asleep, anyway. I wish 
I had n’t gone down into that yard. I guess I 
do know I ought n’t to have done it, and I am 
just as sorry as I can be. I could n’t be any 
more sorry if papa should call me Rebecca 
Harper, and scold me like everything, and if 
mamma should scold me, too. I guess I won ’t 
say anything even if Ann scolds me, for I know 
I ought not to have done such a dreadful thing. 


CONSEQUENCES. 


45 


Suppose I had been all burned up ; and that is 
just what would have happened if my papa had 
not come ! I wonder how he happened to come 
down into the yard and see the fire. I never 
s’posed he would come. I thought I was just 
going to be all burned up, so I did. Was n’t it 
dreadful to be so close to a fire, and not be 
able to get away ? I would have been all burned 
up by this time, and my house would have been 
all burned up, too, and no one would ever have 
known what became of me. Mamma would 
always have said, ‘ I wonder where Ruby could 
possibly have gone, and why she never, never 
comes home,’ and papa would worry and worry, 
and Ruthy would have been so lonely, and they 
would never, never have known.” 

At the thought of such sad consequences to 
l^r mischief. Ruby cried a little, and before her 
tears had dried, she was fast asleep, so she did 
not know how ill her mamma was all night, nor 
how great had been the consequences of her 
mischief. 

In the morning when Ruby waked up, she 
found Ann by her bedside. 

‘‘ Here is your breakfast,” said Ann, putting 
down a tray with Ruby’s bowl of bread and milk 
upon it, on a little table. “ Your papa says you 
are to stay here till he comes up and lets you 


46 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


out. Oh, Ruby, how could you be so naughty 
and worry your poor mamma? You don’t know 
how sick you made her with your cutting up.” 

Ann did not speak angrily, but she seemed to 
feel so badly about Mrs. Harper’s illness that 
Ruby felt very subdued and did not try to defend 
herself as usual. 

“ I don’t want to stay up here. I want to go 
down and eat my breakfast with Aunt Emma,” 
she said, presently, turning her head away, so 
Ann might not see the tears which were coming 
into her eyes. 

Your papa said you must stay up here,” 
Ann repeated, and without saying anything more, 
she went out, and Ruby heard the bolt slide, 
and knew that she was a prisoner. 

“ I don’t like to be locked in. I just won’t 
be,” she said angrily ; and she thought she would 
jump up and go and pound at the door until 
some one should come to unfasten it ; but then 
she remembered how sick Ann had said her 
mamma was, and she knew that a noise would 
disturb her ; and more than that, — it would 
make her feel so badly to know that Ruby was 
in a temper. 

There was something else that Ruby remem- 
bered, too. The last time her papa had told 
her to stay in her own room till he should 


CONSEQUENCES. 


47 


come to let her out, he had trusted her and had 
not fastened the door ; and when he went up- 
stairs, he had found that Ruby had gone out, and 
was down in the yard playing with her kitten, 
just as if she was not in disgrace ; so it was no 
wonder that he could not trust her this time. 
Ruby sat down on the side of the bed very 
meekly when she remembered all this, and I am 
glad to say, really resolved that as far as she 
could she would make up for having been so 
naughty last night, by trying to be as good as 
possible now, and not give any more trouble to 
her mother. 

Downstairs her father and Aunt Emma were 
eating their breakfast, and her father was saying 
sadly,— 

“ I am sure I don’t know what to do with the 
child. I am so busy with my patients that I 
can hardly take the time to be with her mother 
as much as I should be, and Ann does not seem 
to be able to make her mind. I know she is 
always getting into mischief, and she certainly 
does seem to think of more extraordinary things 
to do than any child I ever knew. She might 
have been badly burned last night, if I had not 
seen the blaze, and even if she had escaped her- 
self, the fire might have spread to the boards 
and fence, and then there is no knowing where 


48 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


it would have stopped. Her mother will never 
get well while she worries about Euby, and you 
see for yourself what harm last night worry did 
her. I declare I don’t know what to do.” 

“ I have a plan,” said Aunt Emma, after a 
little thought. “ I will take Ruby back to school 
with me.” 


CHAPTER Y. 


BOARDING-SCHOOL. 

‘‘Take Ruby to school with you?” repeated 
Dr. Harper in surprise. 

“Yes, I think that is the only thing to be 
done,” Aunt Emma answered. “ Of course you 
would miss her, but you would know that she 
was in safe keeping, and that I would take good 
care of her, and make her as happy as possible ; 
and then without the anxiety of her whereabouts 
or her doings upon her mind, her mother would 
have a better chance to get well. You see you 
never can know what the child will do next, and 
if she had not made that fire she might not have 
been found until morning, and you know in what 
a state her mother would have been by that time. 
I have a week 3"et before I must go back to teach, 
and I will get her ready and take her back with 
me.” 

At first it seemed to Dr. Harper as if he 
could not possibly let his only little daughter 
go away to boarding-school, even with her aunt, 
but as he thought more about it, and talked it 
4 


50 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


over with Aunt Emma, he decided that it was 
the only thing to do with self-willed, mischiev- 
ous little Buby, until her mother should be 
better again, and able to control her. 

The next thing to do was to secure her 
mother’s consent, and Dr. Harper said, — 

“ I am afraid it will take some time to per- 
suade her that she can let Buby go away from 
her. She will miss her so much, and will worry 
lest Buby should be homesick.” 

He was very much surprised, when he sug- 
gested the plan, to hear her say, — 

“ That is just what I have been thinking about 
myself. If I only knew that she was being taken 
good care of, and could not get into any more 
mischief, I would be willing to let her go, for I 
shall never have another easy moment about her 
while I am too sick to take care of her myself. 
I do not know what she will do next.” 

That was just the trouble. Nobody ever knew 
what Buby was going to do next, and as she 
generally got into mischief first, and then did 
her thinking about it afterwards, one might be 
pretty sure that she would carry out any plan 
that came into her head, whatever its conse- 
quences might be. 

Dr. Harper was seriously displeased with liis 
little daughter, and he determined to give her 


BOARDING-SCHOOL. 


5L 


ample time to think over her naughty conduct ; 
so after he had eaten his breakfast, and done all 
that he could for the invalid, he went out to 
visit his patients, leaving her shut up in her 
room, where she could not get into any more 
mischief for a few hours at any rate. 

Ruby had dressed herself and eaten her break- 
fast, feeling very lonely and penitent, and then 
she expected that her papa would come and let 
her out. She wanted to go in to her mamma’s 
room and tell her how sorry she was that she 
had worried her so the night before ; but the 
minutes went by, and still her father did not 
come, and when at last Ruby heard his buggy 
wheels going past the house, she knew that he 
meant to leave her by herself until he should 
come back. 

It seemed a long, long time to Ruby, though it 
was only two hours really, and she had time to 
think of all that had happened, and all that might 
have happened before her papa came back. 

Ruby heard him drive around to the stable, 
and she knew just about how long it would take 
him to walk up to the house. Presently she 
heard his step upon the porch, and then he came 
upstairs, and went first into her mother’s room, 
to see how she was, and then after a few minutes 
he came out, and Ruby heard him coming towards 


52 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


her room. The moment he opened the door she 
ran and threw herself into his arms. 

“ I am so sorry ; indeed I am sorry, papa,’^ 
she cried, bursting into tears. 

Her father sat down, and took her up on his 
knee. 

“ And you have made us all very sorry, Euby 
he answered. “ Your mother is very much worse, 
because she had such a fright last night. Just 
think what it was when we thought you were 
safely asleep for the night to find that you had 
disappeared, without any one knowing where you 
had gone. I drove over to Euthy’s to look for 
you ; and I do not know what I should have 
done if I had not seen the fire, and found you 
ill the yard. I should not have had the least 
idea where to look for you ; and I do not think 
you can realize what serious consequences your 
naughtiness might have had. And they might 
have been very dangerous ones to yourself too. 
If your clothes had taken fire, as they easily 
might have done, I cannot bear to think what 
would have happened to my little daughter.’^ 

Euby cried on, with her face hidden in her 
father’s shoulder. 

Oh, I am so sorry. You can do anything 
you like to me, papa; indeed, you can,” she 
sobbed. ‘‘Perhaps you don’t b’lieve how sorry 


BOARDING-SCHOOL. 


53 


I am, but I never was more sorry for anything; 
never, never.” 

“ I know you are sorry. Ruby,” said her father. 
“ You are always sorry after you have done 
wrong; but that does not seem to keep you 
from getting into the next piece of mischief 
that comes into your head. I cannot let you 
go on in this way any longer. For your mother’s 
sake, if not your own, I must put a stop to it, or 
she will never have a chance to get well. I am 
going to send you away to boarding-school with 
your Aunt Emma.” 

“Oh, papa, papa, don’t do that! please don’t !” 
exclaimed Ruby, clinging to him. “I don’t 
want to go away from you and mamma. I don’t 1 
oh, I don’t 1 Please let me stay home, and you 
can keep me shut up in this one single room all 
the time, and I won’t say one word ; truly, I 
won’t ; but do let me stay with you and mamma. 
1 will be so good.” 

“ You think you will now. Ruby ; but in a few 
days you would be in as much mischief as ever. 
It is better for you to be where some one can 
take care of you. As soon as your mother is 
better you shall come home again ; and after a 
few days, I have no doubt but that you will be 
very happy there with Aunt Emma and the new 
friends you will make.” 


54 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“ I don’t believe Ruthj will like to go,” said 
Ruby presently, after a little thought. 

“ Ruthy is not going, my dear,” answered her 
father. 

“ Oh, is n’t Ruthy going ? ” asked Ruby, in 
surprise. “ I thought of course Ruthy would 
go if I did. Oil, papa, I can’t go without Ruthy. 
I truly can’t. Won’t you make her go with 
me ? Please do ; and then I will try not to cry 
about going.” 

‘‘I don’t believe Ruthy’s papa and mamma 
would want to spare lier,” answered the doctor. 
“ But you will be with Aunt Emma, you know, 
dear ; and you love her, and she will take very 
good care of you.” 

“ But I want Ruthy, too,” Ruby said, looking 
very much as if she was going to begin crying 
again at the thought of being separated, not only 
from her father and mother, but from her little 
friend as well. 

“Nqw Ruby, dear, if you are really sorry that 
you have been so naughty,” said her father, ‘‘ you 
will show it by doing all you can to be good 
now. If you fret and cry and worry about going 
to school, it will make it very hard for your 
mother, and perhaps make her worse. If you 
had been good, and tried to do what you knew 
would please her when she was not able to watch 


BOARDING-SCHOOL. 


55 


you, it would not have been necessary to send 
you away ; but you have shown that you need 
some one to look after you, so there does not 
seem to be any other way but this of giving your 
mother a chance to get well without unnecessary 
anxiety ; and of making sure that you are not 
doing every wild thing that comes into your 
head. I do not think Ruthy can go with you ; 
so you must try to make the best of things, and 
go with your Aunt Emma without complaining. 
If you will do this, I shall know that you really 
love your mamma and want to do all you can to 
make her better; and then just as soon as she 
is well, you shall come home again.” 

Ruby was silent. It was a very hard way of 
showing that she was sorry, she thought. She 
would rather have been shut up in her room, 
or go without pie or almost anything else that 
she could think of, instead of going away to 
boarding-school with Aunt Emma. 

Much as she loved her aunt, she did not want to 
have to leave her father and mother for the sake 
of being with her. All at once a thought came 
into her head which made going away seem less 
hard. I am sure you will laugh when I tell you 
what it was tliat could console her in some part 
for the thought of leaving her father and mother. 
She remembered that once when she was up- 


56 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


stairs in Mrs. Peterson’s house, she saw a little 
trunk standing at the end of the wide hall, studded 
with brass-headed nails, and upon one end were 
tlie letters “ M. I). B.” She had asked Maude to 
whom the trunk belonged, and Maude had looked 
very important when she answered that it was 
her own trunk, and that the letters upon the 
end stood for Maude Delevan Birkenbaum. 
Ruby was wondering whether she should have 
a trunk like Maude’s if she should go to boarding- 
school. It had seemed just the very nicest thing 
in the world to have a trunk of one’s own with 
one’s initials upon it in brass-headed nails, and 
she thought she could go, without being quite 
heart-broken, if only she had a trunk to take 
with her. Finally she said, — 

“ Papa, if I go to boarding-school, I shall have 
to have a trunk, won’t I ? And may it be a 
black trunk with my name on it in brass 
nails ? ” 

Papa smiled, though Ruby did not see him. 

“ Yes, dear,” he answered. “ If you are a good 
little girl, and try not to worry your mother 
by fretting about going, and don’t get into any 
more mischief before you go, I will certainly give 
you just such a trunk to take with you, if that 
will be any comfort to you.” 

“ It certainly would be a comfort,” Ruby an- 




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BOARDING-SCHOOL. 


57 


swercd, cuddling up closer to her papa. ‘‘And 
may I take some butternuts in it ? ’’ 

“ You will have to consult your Aunt Emma 
about what you shall put in it,” her father an- 
swered, “ but I will get you the trunk.” 

“ And it will have a key ? ” asked Ruby. 

“ Yes, it will have a key,” said her father. 
“ Now, Ruby, mamma wants to see you a little 
while. Can I trust you to be a good little girl, 
and not disturb her when you go into her room ? 
Her head aches very badly, and I only want you 
to stay in there long enough to kiss her and tell 
her how sorry you are for disturbing her so last 
night, and then you must go downstairs quietly. 
Will you remember ?” 

“ Yes, papa,” Ruby answered in subdued tones, 
and then she slipped down from his knee, and 
walked along the hall on tiptoe, and stole into 
her mother’s room. When she saw her mother’s 
pale face, and traces of tears on her cheeks, and 
knew that it was because she had been so 
naughty that the tears were there. Ruby wanted 
to bury her head in the pillow beside her mother, 
and have a good cry there ; but she remembered 
what her father had told her, and kept very 
quiet. She only kissed her mother, and whis- 
pering how very sorry she was, she came away, 
feeling comforted and forgiven by her mother’s 


68 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


kiss. “ I don’t see how I am ever bad to such a 
lovely mamma,” she said to herself. 

She was a little shy about going downstairs. 
It was not very pleasant to remember that the 
very first thing Aunt Emma had known about 
her when she came was tliat she was in mis- 
chief, and Ruby thought of course she would say 
something about it, and perhaps that Ann would 
reprove her, too. 

But she was very pleasantly disappointed 
when at last she went into the sitting-room, 
where Aunt Emma was busy with some sewing. 

She looked up and greeted her little niece as 
if she had not seen lier before since her arrival ; 
and she seemed so wholly unconscious of any- 
thing unusual in Ruby’s not being down to 
breakfast, that the little girl thought perhaps 
her aunt had forgotten all about it. Ann did 
not say anything more to her about her naughti- 
ness either, and before dinner-time Ruby was 
almost happy at the idea of going to boarding- 
school with a trunk, and a key, which she meant 
to wear upon a string around her neck. 

She intended to persuade Ruthy to go, too, 
though. She was quite sure that not even the 
trunk could make her go away happily without 
her little friend. 


CHAPTER YI. 


PREPARATIONS. 

Aunt Emma was very pleasant company for 
some time, but when she went upstairs to the 
sick-room, Ruby concluded that she would go 
over and see Ruthy. 

She felt quite important as she walked along, 
thinking of the great news she had to tell. It 
did not take Ruby very long to forget about her 
troubles and penitences, and if it had not been 
for the sight of the blackened remains of the 
fire, and the pile of boards lying where her 
father had thrown them when he pushed them 
down and carried Ruby out, she might not have 
thought of last night’s performance for some 
time. 

As it was, she stopped the happy little song 
that had been on her lips, and walked along 
very quietly for a time, thinking how sorry 
she was that she had made her mother worse, 
and that she was going to be sent away from 
home because she could not be trusted. 


60 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


While going to boarding-school might be a 
very great event, and an event which was quite 
unheard-of in the lives of any of Ruby’s friends, 
yet she did not like to have to remember that it 
was partly as a punishment that she was going. 

Before she reached Ruthy’s, however, she had 
banished all unpleasant thoughts, and her one 
idea was to astonish Ruthy with the information 
that she was going to boarding-school, and was 
to have a trunk to take with her. She ran upon 
the porch calling, — 

“ Ruthy, Ruthy ! Where are you ? ” 

Mrs. Warren came to the door. 

“ Good-morning, Ruby,” she said, looking 
gravely at the little girl. “ How is your mamma 
this morning after her anxiety last night about 
you ? ” 

Ruby had not thought that Mrs. Warren knew 
anything about her plan of playing Swiss Fam- 
ily Robinson, and her face grew very red, as she 
looked away from Mrs. Warren, and twisted the 
corner of her apron into a little point. 

“ How did you know ? ” she asked very 
faintly. 

“ Because your papa came over here looking 
for you, and then he drove back after a while 
to let us know that you were found, and were 
safe. I was very sorry to hear that you had 


PREPARATIONS. 


61 


frightened your mother so. How is she this 
morning ? ” 

“ She is worse this morning,” and Ruby began 
to cry. It was so hard to have to tell Ruthy’s 
mamma that she had made her own dear mother 
worse. ‘‘ I did n’t mean to make my mamma 
worse; I truly didn’t, Mrs. Warren. I love my 
mamma just as much as Ruthy loves you, and 
maybe better, even if I do do things I ought n’t 
to do. I never thought she would know about 
it, I truly didn’t. If I had known that she 
would wake up and be frightened, I never would 
have gone out one step, even if I did think it 
would be fun.” 

Mrs. Warren led Ruby in and took her up in 
her lap. 

“ My dear little girl, if you would only stop 
and think before you get into mischief, I do not 
believe you would do half so many naughty 
things,” she said. “ I know you love your 
mother, but you think about Ruby first and 
what she wants to do, and forget to think about 
your mother until afterwards, and then it is too 
late to spare her anxiety about you. It would 
make her very unhappy if she knew how many 
things you do which, I am sure, you know she 
would not like.” 

“ Indeed, I am going to try to be good,” Ruby 


62 


EDBY AT SCHOOL. 


answered, wiping away her tears. “ And I have 
a great secret, Mrs. Warren. At least, it isn’t 
a secret exactly. It ’s somewhere tliat I am 
going, but I want to tell Ruthy first of all, and 
then I will tell you about it ; and oh, I do hope 
you will let Ruthy go too. Will you ?” 

“ I can’t answer until I know where you are 
going,” Mrs. Warren answered. “ Does your 
papa know where you are going, Ruby ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, ma’am,” Ruby answered promptly, 
glad that for once there was nothing wrong 
about her plan. “ He told me about it this 
morning. It is only that I want Ruthy to know 
it the very first of all that I don’t tell you about 
it this very minute, Mrs. Warren. You don’t 
mind, do you?” 

“ Oh, no,” Mrs. Warren replied. “ If your 
papa knows about it, I am quite satisfied.” 

Ruby jumped down and went in search of 
Ruthy, who Mrs. Warren said was probably 
playing out in the barn. 

“ Ruthy ! Ruthy ! ” called Ruby as she ran 
down and peeped in through the great doors. 

Where are you, Ruthy ? ” 

“Up in the hay loft,” answered a smothered 
voice. “ Come up here. Ruby.” 

So Ruby climbed up and found Ruthy curled 
up in a little nest of fragrant hay, with one of 
her favorite story-books. 


PREPARATIONS. 


63 


“ Oh, Kuby, tell me about last night,” began 
Ruthy eagerly. ‘‘ I was so frightened when it 
began to get dark, and I remembered that you 
were going to stay out-doors all alone by your- 
self ; and I felt so bad that I almost cried. I 
could hardly go to sleep, I kept thinking about 
you so much. Did you go? Wasn’t it dread- 
ful?” 

Ruby was glad that Ruthy did not know how 
her papa had come over to find if Ruby was with 
Ruthy. 

“ Oh, yes,” she answered. “ I went out and 
stayed a long time, but it was n’t very nice. 
Anyway, let ’s don’t talk about that, Ruthy. 1 
have got something to tell you that you could 
never, never guess, I don’t believe, if you tried 
for one hundred times. Now I will give you 
six guesses, and you can see if you can guess 
right. I am going somewhere in about two 
weeks. Can you guess where ? ” 

“ Going somewhere ? ” echoed Ruthy. “ Wliy, 
I don’t believe I could possibly guess, Ruby. 
Let me think first.” 

She shut her eyes and tried to imagine where 
Ruby could be going, but she found it pretty 
hard work. Neither of the little girls had ever 
been away from home in their lives, farther than 
over to the grove where the Four th-of- July 


64 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


picnics were always held, so it was not very 
strange that Ruthy could not think of any visit 
that Ruby would be likely to make. Perhaps 
Ruby was going to visit the grandmother who 
sometimes came to stay with Ruby’s mamma 
for a few weeks, and who had sent the little 
girls their wonder balls when they learned to 
knit. 

“ I guess first that you are going to visit your 
grandma,” she said. 

“ No,” answered Ruby, triumphantly. “ I just 
knew you could n’t possibly guess right, but try 
again. I won’t tell you until you have guessed 
six times.” 

“ I am afraid I won’t ever know, then,” sighed 
Ruthy. “ I can’t think of six places to guess. 
Are you going to New York ?” 

“ No,” answered Ruby. ‘‘ It is a great deal 
more important than going to New York. You 
know folks don’t stay long when they go to New 
York, and they don’t take a — ” but she clapped 
her hands over her mouth to shut out the next 
word. Dear me, I most told you the very 
most important part of the secret. I won’t say 
another word for fear I will tell. Now guess 
again.” 

“ I might as well ask you if you are going to 
the moon,” Ruthy said. 


PREPARATIONS. 65 

“ I truly can’t guess once more, Ruby, so you 
will have to tell me.” 

“ I am going to boarding-school,” announced 
Ruby, triumphantly. 

Ruthy was just as surprised as Ruby had 
expected her to be. She sat straight up in the 
hay, and let her book fall, while she looked at 
Ruby with wide-open eyes. 

“ What ! ” she exclaimed, as if she could not 
believe her ears. “ Did you really say you were 
going to boarding-school. Ruby Harper?” 

“Yes, I really am,” Ruby responded, “but 
there ’s more than that to tell you. What do 
you suppose I am going to have to take with 
me ? ” 

“ I am sure I don’t know,” Ruthy answered. 

“ I am going to have a trunk of my very own,” 
said Ruby, proudly. “ It will be like Maude 
Birkenbaum’s, papa said it would be. It is to 
be black, and have a beautiful row of gold nails 
all around the top, and then at one end there 
will be ‘ M. D. B.’ in letters made of the nails all 
driven in rows. Won’t that be beautiful ?” 

“ Yes, indeed,” answered Ruthy. “ But what 
will ^ M. D. B.’ stand for, Ruby ?” 

“ Why, for my initials of course,” Ruby 
answered. “ Oh, no, I made a mistake. It 
won’t be ‘ M. D. B.,’ but ‘ R. T. H.,’ to stand for 
5 


66 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


Ruby Todd Harper. I forgot that my initials 
and Maude’s were n’t the same. But just think 
of it, Ruthy. To have a trunk of one’s own and 
a key to it! I think that wdll be too lovely for 
anything.” 

“ Are you glad you are going to boarding- 
school?” asked Ruthy, looking at her rather 
soberly. 

Why, yes, of course I am,” said Ruby, try- 
ing to forget that it meant going away from 
home, too. 

“How long will you stay, do you suppose?” 
asked Ruthy. 

“ Oh, I don’t exactly know. Till mamma gets 
well again, papa said,” Ruby replied. “ I spose 
maybe about a year.” 

Ruby had rather vague ideas about the length 
of a year. She always counted a year from one 
Christmas to the next, or from one Fourth of 
July to the next, whichever happened to be 
nearest the time from which she was calculating ; 
and though it seemed a long time when she 
looked back from one holiday to the last, yet 
she did not have a very good idea how much 
time it took for twelve months to pass away. 
Ruby knew her tables, and she could have told 
you in one minute, that it took three hundred 
and sixty-five days to make a year, but she did 


PREPARATIONS. 


67 


not know how long it took that procession of 
days to pass along and let the new year come 
in. 

“ Oh, dear,” and Ruthy buried her face in the 
hay, and began to cry. 

‘‘Why, what is the matter?” asked Ruby, in 
surprise. 

“ I shall miss you so dreadfully,” sobbed 
Ruthy. “ I shall not have any one to play 
with, that is, any one like you, and I shall miss 
you all the time.” 

“ But I am going lb ask your mamma to let 
you go with me,” Ruby said comfortingly. “ I 
forgot to tell you, but I truly will. Do you sup- 
pose I would go away off to boarding-school 
without you, Ruthy Warren ? You might know 
I would n’t. Of course not. Come and let ’s 
go in now and ask your mother if you can’t go 
with me.” 

But Ruthy cried harder than ever. 

“ But I don’t want to go to boarding-school,” 
she sobbed. “ I want to stay witli my mamma. 
I should just die if I went way off away from 
her. I don’t want you to go either. Ruby. I 
don’t see what you think it is nice to go to 
boarding-school for, anyway.” 

“Now, Ruthy, I thought you would go with 
me, even if you didn’t think it would be very 


68 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


nice at first,” Ruby said, in rather reproving 
tones. “ Of course you think it would n’t be 
nice, but it would be after you got used to it, 
and you would have a trunk, too, maybe. 
Wouldn’t that be nice?” 

But the trunk was no comfort to Ruthy. She 
could not understand how Ruby could bear to 
think of leaving her mother. She was quite 
sure she would never be willing to do it, and 
not Ruby’s most eloquent representations to 
her of how delightful going away with a trunk 
would be, could induce her to want to accom- 
pany her. 

“ Oh, I wish you were not going, either,” was 
all that Ruby could coax from her, after she had 
talked until she was tired. 


CHAPTER VII. 


MORE PREPARATIONS. 

There was nothing that vain little Ruby 
enjoyed more than a sense of importance, and 
so she was quite happy for the next few days. 
All her little friends looked upon her with won- 
der when they heard that she was going away 
to boarding-school, and Ruby’s announcement 
to them that she was going to take a trunk 
added to the importance of the occasion quite 
as much as she had hoped it would. 

There was only a week in which to make all 
preparations for her going, so you can imagine 
that they were very busy days. Miss Abigail 
Hart, the dressmaker who made every one’s, 
clothes, when they were not made by people 
themselves, came to the house every day, and 
sewed all day long, and Aunt Emma helped her 
most of the time. If it had not been for the 
thoughts of the trunk. Ruby would have found 
some of these days very tiresome. She had to 
be always ready in case Miss Hart should want 
to try on any of her dresses, so she could not go 


70 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


very far away from the house, and she found 
Miss Hart’s dressmaking very different from 
her mother’s dressmaking. 

Miss Abigail Hart was tall and thin, and as 
Ruby and many other little girls said, had quite 
forgotten all about the time when she was a 
little girl ; so when she went to houses to sew, 
the children usually tried to keep out of her 
way as much as possible. Her hands were very 
cold, whether it was summer or winter, and she 
never liked it if any one whom she was fitting 
jumped about when her cold fingers touched 
one’s neck. She wore long scissors, tied by a 
ribbon to her waist, and these scissors were 
always cold; and it was not at all a pleasant 
operation to have the waist of a dress fitted, 
and have Miss Abigail’s cold fingers, and her 
still colder scissors creeping about one’s neck. 

“ If you don’t keep still it will not be my fault 
if you get a cut,” Miss Abigail would say, and 
I am not sure but that some of the little girls 
were afraid that their very heads might be 
snipped off* by a slip of those shining blades, 
if they wriggled about when the necks of their 
dresses were being trimmed down. 

Miss Abigail was very slow, so it took a long 
time to go through this operation, and the worst 
part of it was that one fitting never was suffi- 


MORE PREPARATIONS. 


71 


cient. At least twice, and sometimes three 
times she would repeat it, and there were plenty 
of Ruby’s friends who had said that not for all 
the new dresses in the world would they want to 
have Miss Abigail fit them. They would rather 
have but one dress and have that dress made by 
their mothers, if they had to choose between 
that and those cold fingers and sharp scissors. 

It was very pleasant to go to the store with 
Aunt Emma, and help choose the pretty calicoes 
and delaines which were to be made into dresses 
and help fill the little trunk. Ruby never felt 
more important than when she was perched 
upon the high stool before the counter and 
had four new dresses at once. She fancied 
that the store-keeper was more respectful in 
his tone than he usually was when he addressed 
little girls, and that he was much impressed by 
the fact that Aunt Emma let her select the 
pattern herself instead of choosing for her. 

The calicoes were very pretty. One was cov- 
ered with little rosebuds upon a cream-tinted 
ground, and the other had little dark-blue moons 
upon a light-blue ground. The delaines were 
brown and blue ; and then besides these dresses. 
Ruby’s best cashmere was to be let down, and 
have the sleeves lengthened, so that it would 
still be nice for a best dress. 


72 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


Ruby had never had so many new dresses all 
at once in her life before, and she felt very im- 
portant when her papa brought them home in 
the buggy, and they were all spread out before 
Miss Abigail. 

Miss Abigail looked at them very wisely, with 
her head a little upon one side. She rubbed 
tliem between her fingers, wondered whether 
they would wash well, and finally looked at 
Ruby, and said, — 

“ I trust you are a very thankful little girl for 
all the mercies you have. Do you know that 
there are some poor little children who have 
but rags to wear ? ” 

“ Yes ’m,” said Ruby, meekly. 

“ Then don’t you think you ought to appre- 
ciate all the blessings that have been bestowed 
upon you ? ” 

“Yes ’m,” Ruby replied again. 

“ Then you must try to be an obedient, gentle 
child, and do as you are bid in everything.” 

“ Yes ’m,” said Ruby, wishing in the bottom 
of her heart that the dresses were all made. 

She had never had very much to do with Miss 
Abigail herself, although she had often seen her, 
and two or three times she had spent a day 
at the house, helping Mrs. Harper make one of 
her own dresses. Upon those occasions, however. 


MORE PREPARATIONS. 


73 


Ruby had spent the day with Ruthy, and so she 
had only been with Miss Abigail a little while 
in the morning, and had not had much to say 
to her. 

“ If Miss Abigail was my mamma, I would 
not stay in the same house with her,” Ruby 
said to lierself. “ I guess that is why she has n’t 
any little girls, — because she don’t know how 
to make them happy. I don’t want to be told 
all the time about being good, I guess.” 

But Ruby had to listen to a great many lec- 
tures, whether she liked them or not, in the next 
few days. Miss Abigail came and stayed with 
them for all the rest of the week, and as she 
believed in little girls being made useful. Ruby 
had to spend a good deal of time in picking out 
bastings, and doing other little things for Miss 
Abigail. 

‘‘ Oh, dear, I have n’t done one single thing 
since I can remember,” Ruby said, impatiently, 
to Ruthy one day when her little friend came 
over to see her ; “ I have n’t done one single 
thing but pick out bastings and have Miss 
Abigail telling me how good I ought to be ’cause 
I have so many new dresses. I do wish she was 
all done and had gone away.” 

But then you will go away, too, you know,” 
Ruthy suggested. 


74 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


‘‘ I wisli I would n’t ; I wish I was going to 
stay here for a week after she went,” Euby 
answered. ‘‘ I think Aunt Emma might stop 
her, I do so.” 

How do you mean?” asked Ruthy. 

‘‘ Well, I know what I would do,” said Ruby. 

I would say to her this way — ” and Ruby 
held her head very high, and tried to look 
exceedingly dignified — “I should say, ‘ Miss 
Abigail, if you will please tend to making 
Ruby’s dresses, I will tend to her behavior.’ ” 

Ruthy looked rather shocked. 

“ I am afraid that would make Miss Abigail 
feel dreadfully bad, to have your auntie say 
such a thing,” she said. “ I think Miss Abigail 
is real nice, I truly do. She saves pretty pieces 
of calico for my patch-work, and once she gave 
me a sash for my doll ; don’t you remember it ? 
— that blue one, with a little rose bud in the 
middle.” 

“ Well, I don’t like her,” and Ruby shook her 
shoulders. ‘‘ And I don’t think it ’s nice in you 
to like her, when she makes me perfectly mis- 
erable. How would you like it if every time 
you wanted to do anything you heard her calling 
you, and had to go in and be fitted and fitted. 
She holds pins in her mouth, too, a whole row 
of them, and mamma never lets me do that, so 


MORE PREPARATIONS. 


75 


Miss Abigail ought not to, and I just think I 
will tell her so. She has a whole row of them, 
just as long as her mouth is wide, and they 
bristle straight out when she talks. Just sup- 
pose she should drop some down my neck when 
she is talking. They would stick in to me, and 
hurt me like everything before I could get them 
out. I guess I would n’t like that, would I ? 
And if you had to stand just hours and hours, 
and have her cold fingers poking around your 
neck, and those great sharp scissors going snip, 
snip all around your neck, just where tliey would 
cut great pieces out if you dared move, I don’t 
believe you would like that yourself, Ruthy 
Warren, even if she did give you things for 
your doll.” 

“ No, I don’t s’pose I would like it any better 
than you do,” assented Ruthy, who was deter- 
mined not to quarrel with her little friend, when 
they were so soon to be separated. 

“ Ruby, Miss Abigail wants you,” called Aunt 
Emma. 

Ruby made a wry face. 

“ There she is again,” she exclaimed. “ It ’s 
just the way the whole livelong time. I think 
if she knew how to make dresses, she ought not 
to have to fit so much. If I fitted my doll so 
often when I made her a dress, I guess her head 


7G 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


would fall off. It would get sliaky anyway, with 
so much fussing. W ait till I come back, Ruthy, 
and then we will play.” 

Miss Abigail was waiting to fit Ruby’s blue 
delaine, and it looked so pretty that Ruby for- 
got how unwilling she had been to come in and 
have it fitted. 

She showed her pleasure in it so plainly that 
good Miss Abigail was afraid that the little girl 
was in danger of becoming vain, and thought it 
best to warn her against this state of mind. 

“ I am afraid it is n’t the best thing for you, 
Ruby Warren, to have so many new clothes all 
at once,” she said, with the row of pins waving up 
and down, as she spoke through her teeth, 
which she did not open when she spoke, lest the 
pins should fall out. “ If any one thinks more 
of clothes than they should, then dress is a snare 
and a temptation to them, and I am much afraid 
that that is what it is going to be to you. Better 
for you to have only one dress to your back than to 
put clothes in the wrong place in your mind, and 
let them make you vain and conceited. What 
are clothes, anyway ? There is n’t any thing to 
be so proud of in them. Now this nice wool 
delaine was once growing on a sheep’s back. 
Do you suppose that sheep was vain because it 
was covered with wool ? No, it never thought 


MORE PREPARATIONS. 77 

anything about it. And so you see that you 
ought n’t to be proud of it either.” 

“ I think new dresses are very nice,” said Ruby, 
speaking cautiously, lest she should inadvertently 
turn her head, and the sharp points of the scis- 
sors should run into her neck. 

Miss Abigail felt that she must say still more, 
for it was evident that Ruby was putting too 
much value upon her dress. 

“ But it is n’t new,” she said. 

“ Oh, Miss Abigail, it truly is,” exclaimed 
Ruby, forgetting herself and turning her head 
so suddenly that if the scissors had been in the 
right place, the points would surely have run 
into her. Fortunately, Miss Abigail had stopped 
to see how the neck looked, and her scissors 
were hanging by her side for a moment. “ Why, 
of course, it is new. I went with Aunt Emma 
to the store, and helped buy it my very own self, 
so I know it is brand-new. Why, I should think 
you could tell it is new, it is so pretty and bright, 
and there is n’t one single teenty tonty wrinkle 
in it.” 

‘‘ Yes, it is new to you,” Miss Abigail an- 
wered solemnly. “ But when you think about 
the matter, Ruby Harper, you know that the 
sheep wore it first, and you only have it second- 
hand, as you might say. Now, I should think a 


78 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


little girl was very silly that thought herself 
better than any one else, and let her thoughts 
rest on her clothes because she wore a sheep’s 
old suit of wool made up in a little different way. 
Shall I tell you some verses that my mother 
made me learn when I was a little girl, because 
I was proud of a new pelisse ? ” 

‘‘ Yes ’m,” said Kuby, meekly, taking a great 
deal of pleasure in the thought that when Miss 
Abigail was a little girl she had been naughty 
sometimes, and had had to learn verses as a 
punishment. 

“ ‘ How proud we are, how fond to show 
Our clothes, and call them rich and new. 

When the poor sheep and silk-worm wore 
That very clothing long before. 

“ ‘ The tulip and the butterfly 
Appear in gayer coats than I; 

Let me be dressed fine as I will, 

Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.’ ” 

“ I don’t think worms look nicer than I do,” 
said Ruby, not very politely, when Miss Abigail 
had finished. ‘‘ And I am very sorry for you. Miss 
Abigail, if you had to learn such ugly verses. If 
you had had a mamma like mine you would have 
had a better time, I think.” • 


MORE PREPARATIONS. 


79 


Miss Abigail looked severely over her brass- 
bowed spectacles at Ruby, almost too shocked 
to speak for a moment. 

“I am sure, I don’t know what your mother 
would say, Ruby Harper, if she heard you talk- 
ing that way. I am sure she would think that 
you were no credit to her bringing-up. You 
have a good mother, one of the best mothers that 
ever lived, and your father is such a good man, 
too, that I am sure I don’t see where you get 
your pert ways from. I was a happy child, be- 
cause I was, in the main, a good child, and no one 
ever had a better mother than mine ; and I have 
tried to follow the way in which I was brought 
up, if I do say it myself. Those were counted 
to be very pretty verses when I was a child, 
and I don’t know but they were better than 
to-day. At any rate, in my day, cliildren were 
taught to have a little respect for their elders, 
and there are very few that do that now. There 
were some other verses that I was going to tell 
a good deal of the nonsense that children learn 
you, but if that is your opinion of those I did 
tell you, there is no use in my taking so much 
trouble.” 

Miss Abigail looked sorrowful as well as 
vexed, and Ruby wished that she had not told 
her what she thought of the verses. 


80 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


I suppose she thinks they are nice,’^ she said 
to herself ; “ and mamma would be sorry if she 
thought I had been rude to Miss Abigail,” 

Ruby was going away from her mother so 
soon that her conscience was more tender than 
usual, and she did not want to do what she knew 
her mother would not like. 

“ Please tell me the other verses, Miss Abi- 
gail,” she said. “ I did not know you liked 
those other verses, or I would not have called 
them ugly.” 

“ I am glad you did not mean to be a rude 
child,” said Miss Abigail, pleased by Ruby’s 
apology. “Your mother takes so much pains 
with you that it would be a pity for you not to 
be a good child. Yes, I will tell you the others, 
and while I am repeating them you can sit 
down upon this little ottoman, and pick out the 
bastings in this sleeve.” 

While Ruby pulled the basting- thread out, 
and wound it on a spool as Miss Abigail had 
taught her, half wishing that she had not said 
anything about the other verses, since she might 
now have been out at play with Ruthy, Miss 
Abigail repeated some more of the verses she 
had learned when she, too, was a little girl like 
Ruby : — 


MOHE PREPAKATIONS. 


81 


“ ‘ Come, come, Mister Peacock, you must not be proud, 
Although you can boast such a train ; 

For many a bird, far more highly endowed, 

Is not half so conceited nor vain. 

Let me tell you, gay bird, that a suit of fine clothes 
Is a sorry distinction at most. 

And seldom much valued, excepting by those 
Who only such graces can boast. 

The nightingale certainly wears a plain coat, 

But she cheers and delights with her song ; 

While you, though so vain, cannot utter a note, 

To please by the use of your tongue. 

The hawk cannot boast of a plumage so gay. 

But piercing and clear is her eye ; 

And while you are strutting about all the day, 

She gallantly soars in the sky. 

The dove may be clad in a plainer attire. 

But she is not selfish and cold ; 

And her love and affection more pleasure impart 
Than all your fine purple and gold. 

So you see. Mister Peacock, you must not be proud. 
Although you can boast such a train ; 

For many a bird is more highly endowed, 

And not half so coineeited and vain.’ ” 

“ I think I like that ever so much better,” 
said Ruby, jumping up as Miss Abigail finished, 
and lianding back the sleeve, from which she had 
pulled all the basting-threads. 

6 


82 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“ Now can I go over to Ruthy’s, Miss Abigail ? 
Aunt Emma told me that I must ask you before 
I went away anywhere, for fear you would want 
me.” 

“ No, I shall not want you any more until 
nearly tea-time,” Miss Abigail answered, as she 
scrutinized the sleeve to see whether Ruby had 
left any bastings in it. “ Now remember what 
I have told you. Ruby, child, about setting your 
heart upon your fine clothes. Clothes do not 
make people, and if you are not a well-behaved 
child, polite and respectful to your betters, it 
will not make any difference to any one how 
well you may be dressed.” 

“ Yes ’m,” Ruby answered, as she ran away 
to find Ruthy, thinking that little girls in Miss 
Abigail’s time must have been very different 
from the little girls she knew, and wondering 
whether Miss Abigail looked as tall and thin 
when she was a little girl as she did now, and 
whether she used to be just as proper and 
precise. 

It was so funny to think of Miss Abigail as 
a little girl that Ruby laughed aloud at the 
thought, as she looked for her little friend. 
She was quite sure of one thing : if she had 
been a little girl when Miss Abigail was a little 
girl, she would not have chosen her for a friend. 


MORE PREPARATIONS. 


83 


Ruthy was the only little girl in all the world 
that she could wish to have always for a friend, 
for who else would be always willing to give up 
her own way, and yield so patiently to impetuous 
little Ruby in everything. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


READY. 

Ruby thoroughly enjoyed all the preparations 
that were being made for her departure. Every 
day, and a great many times a day, the little 
trunk would be opened and something more put 
into its hungry mouth, and it was soon quite 
full of the things which Ruby was to take with 
her. Of course she did not get into mischief 
during these busy days, — there was no time for 
it. It was only when Ruby had nothing else to 
think about that she devised plans for mischief. 

At last everything was ready the evening 
before she was to start. Miss Abigail had fin- 
ished all that she had to do ; she had bidden 
Ruby good-by, with a long lecture upon how 
she ought to behave when she was at school, so 
as to set a good example to her school-mates, 
and reflect credit upon her father and mother 
and the training they had given her, and then 
she had concluded by giving Ruby something 
that I am afraid she valued much more than 
the advice, — a pretty little house- wife, of red silk, 


READY. 


85 


which she had made for her, with everything in 
it that Ruby would need if she wanted to take 
any stitches. 

When Ruby saw it she was sorry that she 
had twisted about so much, and showed so 
plainly how impatient she was growing of the 
long talk which preceded it. 

Then Miss Abigail had tied on her large black 
bonnet, and Ruby had watched her going down 
the road with a sense of relief that there would 
be no more fitting of dresses, with cold fingers 
and still colder scissors, and no more lectures 
upon good behavior. However, she was so 
pleased and surprised by the pretty gift that 
she felt more kindly towards Miss Abigail than 
she would have believed it possible. 

Ruby’s old dresses had been made over until 
they looked just like new ones, and the last 
stitches had been taken in her new ones, and 
little white ruffles were basted in the necks, so 
that they were all ready to put on. Everything 
had been carefully folded up and packed in 
her trunk, — not only her clothes, but the little 
farewell gifts that her friends had brought 
her. 

She had a nice pencil-box, filled with pencils 
and pen-holders, two penwipers, as well as a 
box of the dearest little note-paper, just the 


86 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


right size for her to write upon, with her initial 
R ’’ at the top of the paper. 

Orpah had brought her a mysterious box, 
carefully tied up in paper, which she had made 
Ruby promise that she would not open until 
she unpacked her trunk at school ; so that gave 
Ruby something nice to look forward to when 
she should reach her journey’s end. 

Ruby had fully intended to take her kitten 
with her, and she was very much disappointed 
when Aunt Emma told her that that was one 
of the things she would have to leave behind 
her. 

Ann promised to take the very best care of 
Tipsey, and that promise comforted Ruby some- 
what, although she still wished that she might 
take her pet with her. 

It was not until the last evening came that 
Ruby fully realized that she was going away to 
leave her papa and mamma the next day. Then 
she felt as if she would gladly give up her 
trunk and all her new clothes and everything 
that she had been enjoying so much, if she 
might only stay at home. 

For the first time her promise to her father 
to be brave about going away cost her a great 
effort. Her mother had not been nearly so well 
since the night she had been so anxious about 


EEADY. 


87 


her little girl, and Ruby knew that she must 
not worry her by crying or fretting about going 
away. 

But she climbed up on her father’s lap after 
she had eaten her supper, and put her head 
down upon his broad shoulder, with the feel- 
ing that nothing in all the wide world could 
make up to her for being away from him and 
from her dear mother. 

She wished with all her heart that she had 
tried to be a good girl during her mother’s 
illness, for then it would not have been neces- 
sary to send her away to school. But now it 
was too late, for everything was all ready for 
her going, and Ruby was quite sure that coax 
and tease as hard as she might, her father 
would not change his plans. 

“ I don’t want to go away, papa,” she said, 
with a little sob in her voice, as Tipsey scram- 
bled up in her lap, and curling herself into a 
little round ball of fur began to purr a soft 
little tune. 

“Don’t you want to leave Tipsey?” asked 
her father, playfully. 

“ It is n’t only Tipsey,” said Ruby, while a 
big tear splashed down upon her father’s hand. 
“ It is you and mamma, most of all, and Ruthy, 
and everybody. I know I shall not be one 


88 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


single bit happy at school when I can’t come 
home and see you when I want to, and 1 shall 
just most die, I am sure I shall.” 

“ Little daughter, we both love mother, don’t 
we?” asked her father, stroking Ruby’s dark 
hair gently. 

“ Yes, sir,” answered Ruby, with a tremulous 
voice. 

“ And we would do anything to help her get 
well again ? ” 

Why, of course,” Ruby answered again. 

“ Then we must do some things that are hard, 
if we really want to help her. You know how 
sick she has been the last few days. I don’t 
want you to feel as if I was sending you away 
only as a punishment for running away that 
night. Perhaps if you had not done that par- 
ticular thing, I might not have given my consent 
to this plan, but I am sure you are enough of a 
little woman to see what a help it will be to 
mother. If she is to get well again, she needs 
to have her mind kept perfectly free from worry ; 
and when you are running about with no one to 
take care of you except Ann, who is too busy to 
do much for you, she is worrying all the time for 
fear something may happen to you, or that you 
may get into some mischief. Now if she knows 
you are safe at school with Aunt Emma, where 


READY. 


89 


you will be well taken care of, and will study 
your lessons, and try to be good and obedient, 
then she will feel so much happier about you 
that it will do more toward helping her to get 
well than all the medicine in the world. There 
are some things that I can do for her. I can 
take care of her, and give her medicine, and see 
that nothing troubles her in the house, but there 
is something for you to do that I cannot do. 
This is to be your share of helping dear mother 
get well. If you go away bravely, and try to 
study and be a good girl, so that Aunt Emma 
can write home in each letter that you are doing 
just as mother would wish you to do, you will be 
helping her even more than I will. If you tliink 
only about yourself, you will cry about going, 
and fret to come home, until mother will be 
troubled about you, and perhaps think it best 
for you to come home again ; but if you think 
about mother, you will be my own brave little 
daughter, and then mother will soon be well 
again, and we will send for our little Ruby, and 
she will come home wiser and better-behaved 
than when she went away, and we will all be so 
happy. I am sure I know which you are going 
to do.” 

“ I am going to be just as brave as can be,” 
Ruby answered, winking back the tears which 


90 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


had been trying to roll down her cheeks, and 
rubbing out of sight the great shining one which 
had splashed down upon Tipsey’s soft fur. 

Yes, papa, I am going to be just as brave as 
anything. I won’t cry. I won’t say one word 
about wanting to come home in my letters, and 
I -frill study so hard that I shall stay up at the 
head of the class just as I do here, and the 
teacher will think I am ever so — ” 

“ Be careful, darling,” interrupted her father. 
“ I don’t want my little girl to think so much of 
herself. If you go to school thinking that you 
are going to be so much more clever than all the 
other little girls, I am afraid you will find out 
that you are sadly mistaken, and then you will 
be very unhappy. Don’t think of excelling the 
other girls, but think of doing the very best you 
can because it is right, and because it will make 
mother and father happy. I would rather have 
my little Ruby at the very foot of the class, and 
have her unselfish and gentle, than have her at 
the head, with a proud and unlovely spirit. Of 
course I should be very glad to have my little 
daughter excel in her lessons, for then I should 
know that she was studying and trying to im- 
prove herself as much as possible, but I don’t 
want to have her as vain as a little peacock over 
it. And you know. Ruby, that it is generally 


EEADY. 


91 


when you are trusting in yourself that you do 
something that you are the most sorry for. 
Pride goes before a fall, you remember.” 

“ I will try not to be proud,” said Ruby, {^ni- 
tently. ‘‘ But you don’t know how I like to be 
praised, papa. It scares Euthy, and she does n’t 
like it one bit, but I like it from my head d^wn 
to my feet, I truly do. I like to have people say 
I am ever so smart, and I don’t see how I can 
help it.” 

“ By trying to forget yourself, dear, and keep- 
ing self in the back-ground as much as you can 
in everything that you do. When you are try- 
ing to do anything well, remember that it is only 
just what you ought to do. God has given you 
a good memory, and a readiness to learn, and so 
you ought to do the very best with the powers 
he has given you. You have no more reason to 
be vain of them than a peacock has to be vain 
of his fine tail. And it is better to be lovable 
than clever, and any one who is conceited never 
makes the friends that a modest child does. 
Now promise me that you will try, little daugh- 
ter, to be gentle and modest, and not come back 
to us selfish and full of conceit.” 

“I will truly try, papa,” Ruby answered. 
“ That is harder for me to try than to try to 
learn my lessons or to keep the rules, but I will 


92 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


truly try, and you shall see how brave I will be 
in the morning when I go away. Why, papa, I 
am brave this very minute. I could just cry 
and cry, it makes me feel so full to think that 
this time to-morrow night you will be here just 
the same, and I will be ever so far away/’ 

“ We will think about the time when you will 
come home again,” said her father, quickly, for 
Ruby’s voice sounded very much as if a word 
more would bring the tears. “ Some day I shall 
drive down to the station and a young lady with 
a trunk will get off the cars, and I shall hardly 
know who it is, you will have grown so fast. 
Little girls always grow fast when they go to 
boarding-school, you know.” 

‘‘ Do they ? ” asked Ruby, eagerly. ‘‘ Oh, papa, 
do you s’pose I can have long dresses next year ? ” 
“ Why, then people would think you were a 
little baby again,” said her papa, pretending to 
misunderstand her. “ They would say, ‘ Why, 
Ruby Harper wore long dresses when she was 
six months old, and now she has them on again. 
She must have grown backwards.’ ” 

“ Now, papa Harper, you are making fun of 
me,” exclaimed Ruby. ‘‘ I mean long dresses 
like young ladies wear. I want to be grown up. 
Will I be big enough to wear dresses with a 
train next year if I grow fast.” 


READY. 


93 


“ If you shouldgrow fast enough/^ her father 
answered, pinching her cheek, “ but I don’t 
think you will do that, Ruby. You would have 
to grow like Jack’s beanstalk, if you expect to 
spring up into a young lady in a year. Why, 
then I would not have any little girl, and what 
would I do for some one to hold in my lap ? ” 

“ Oh, I guess I don’t want to grow too big to 
sit ill lap,” Ruby answered, nestling closer to 
her father. “ I forgot that part of it. I will 
wait for ever so many years for long dresses, if 
I must give up sitting in lap. Well, I will grow 
as fast as I can, but not so fast that I won’t be 
your little Ruby any longer.” 

“ And now, dear, say good-night to mamma 
and go to bed,” said her father, as he heard the 
clock striking. “We will have to be up bright 
and early in the morning, and I want you to 
have a good sleep.” 

By the time the stars were looking down 
Ruby was sound asleep in her little trundle- 
bed for the last time for many weeks. 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE JOURNEY. 

Ruby and Aunt Emma were to start at nine 
o’clock, and as there were a great many little 
things to be done before the travellers should 
get off, the whole house was astir very early in 
the morning. Ruby was very much excited over 
her journey, but there was a little lump that 
kept arising in her throat all the time as if it 
would choke her if she did not swallow it back. 

Ruthy was to go over to the station with her, 
and see her off, and it was hardly daybreak 
when she came over to Ruby’s house, eager to 
have as long a time as possible with her little 
friend before she should go away. 

Ruby felt as if she was a little queen, every 
one was so kind to her, and so anxious to please 
her in every way. Even Ann was wonderfully 
subdued, and when Ruby came downstairs, took 
her in her arms and said : ‘‘ I don’t know 

what we shall do without the precious child, I 
am sure.” Coming from Ann, this was indeed 
a great compliment, and Ruby felt as if Ann 


THE JOHKNEY. 95 

was really very nice, indeed, since she had so 
high an opinion of the little girl. 

“ Are n’t you sorry you have been so cross to 
me, sometimes ? ” asked Ruby, presently, think- 
ing that if Ann would admit that she had said 
a great deal that she did not mean in the past, 
she would feel still happier. 

Ann was sorry to have tlie child from whom 
she had never been separated for a whole day, 
go away for weeks, but she was not by any 
means disposed to admit that Ruby had not de- 
served all the scoldings she had ever given her, 
and her voice had quite a little of its usual 
sharpness as she answered, — 

“ You know as well as I do. Ruby Harper, 
that you ’ve been enough to try the patience of 
a saint many and many a time, more particularly 
since your mother has been taken ill, and though 
I’m sorry you’re going away, I am sure it is 
the best thing for you, for you had got long past 
my managing, and nobody knew what* you were 
going to do next. If you were n’t going to 
school, likely enough you would burn us all 
down in our beds some night.” 

Ruby looked rather crestfallen. 

‘‘ I don’t think you need be cross the very 
last thing when I am going away so far, and you 
won’t see me for ever and ever so long again,” 
she said, with a little quiver in her voice. 


96 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“ Well, I did n’t mean to be,” said Ann, 
giving her another hug. ‘‘ It ’s only that I got 
provoked that I said that. You see you and me 
have a lot to learn yet. Ruby, before we can say 
and do just what we ought to, and nothing else. 
I ’ll take it all back, and I ’ll show you the 
nice cake I have made for your lunch on the 
cars.” 

Ruby followed Ann to the buttery, and ad- 
mired the cake with its white crust of icing, 
that looked like a coating of frost, to Ann’s con- 
tent, and would have been quite willing to have 
had a piece of it then and there, if Ann would 
have permitted it. 

Everybody talked a great deal about every- 
thing but Ruby’s going away, for nobody wanted 
to give the little girl time enough to think about 
it, lest she should grow homesick ; and it seemed 
quite like a party. Ruby thought, as she sat be- 
side her father at the table, with Ruthy sitting 
by her, all ready for another breakfast, she had 
risen so early. 

After breakfast papa went down to the stable 
to harness up ; the little trunk was shut for the 
last time, and the key turned and put in Aunt 
Emma’s pocket-book, — greatly to Ruby’s disap- 
pointment, for she wanted to keep it herself ; but 
Aunt Emma said she might have it after they 


THE JOURNEY. 


97 


got safely to school, but it would be very incon- 
venient if she should lose it on the way there, 
and she tried to console herself with that prom- 
ise. Ruby had had a parting frolic with Tipsey, 
and Ruthy had promised to come over and play 
with the kitten very often, so that she would not 
miss her little mistress too much, and now Ruby 
was going to say good-by to her mother, and 
have a few quiet minutes with her, before it 
should be time to put her hat and jacket on. 

The room was dark and quiet, and when Ruby 
went in, old Mrs. Maggs, who spent all her time 
in staying with sick people and nursing them, 
got up and went out, so that the little girl should 
have her mother all to herself. 

Ruby cuddled her face down beside her dear 
mother’s face, in the pillow, and it was all the 
little girl could do to keep from bursting into 
tears, and begging that she might not be sent 
away. She remembered her promise to her 
father to be brave, and she swallowed the lump 
in her throat, back, over and over again, while 
her mother told her how she hoped that her 
little daughter would be a good girl, so that all 
she should hear from Aunt Emma would be good 
news, of Ruby’s improvement in her studies, and . 
of her good conduct. 

Ruby listened to every word, and she promised 
7 


98 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


her mother very earnestly that she would indeed 
try to conquer her self-will, and be good. 

“That will help you get well, wont it, 
mamma ? ” she asked, stroking the white face 
tenderly. 

“ Yes, darling, nothing will help me get well 
faster than that,” her mother answered, giving 
her a tender kiss. 

It was very hard to say good-by when papa’s 
voice called, — 

“ Come little daughter, the carriage is ready.” 
It was harder than Ruby had had any idea that 
it would be. It seemed as if she could not pos- 
sibly say good-by to her mother, and go out of 
the room, knowing that she could not kiss her 
good-night or good-morning any more for weeks 
and weeks. If it had been any one else, but to 
go away from her seemed quite impossible. 

“ Good-by, darling. Remember you are go- 
ing to help me 'get well again,” her mother said, 
drawing the little girl’s face down for a last 
kiss, and that helped Ruby to be very brave. 
She kissed her mother over and over again, and 
then jumped up and went out of the room with- 
out one word. 

The lump in her throat was growing so big 
that she knew she should cry in a moment if 
she did not hurry away. 


THE JOURNEY. 


99 


‘‘I was brave, papa, I was brave,” she said, 
when she went out into the hall and found her 
father waiting for her ; but the tears came then 
fast and thick for a moment. 

“Now you will be my brave little daughter 
again, I know,” said her father, comfortingly, 
“ for it is time for us to start now. I am afraid 
the train would not wait for us if you were not 
at the station in time, and it would never do to 
miss the train on your first journey, would it ? ” 

Ruby smiled through her tears. 

“ Don’t you think they would wait when they 
saw the trunk on the platform, papa ? I should 
think they would know somebody was going 
away then, and would wait.” 

“ No, I don’t think that even for anything as 
important as the trunk, the train would wait,” 
her father answered. 

Ann helped Ruby put on her hat and jacket 
with unusual gentleness, and Ruby thought that 
Ann looked very much as if she wanted to cry. 

“ Do you feel sorry, really, that I am going 
away, Ann?” she asked. 

“ Of course I do, honey,” Ann answered. 

All at once Ruby remembered how she had 
teased Ann, how many times she had been rude 
to her, and had done what she knew Ann did 
not want her to, and she put her arms around 
Ann’s neck. 


100 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“Ann, I’m sorry I have been so bad,” she 
whispered. “ I will be good when I come home 
again.” 

Ann was very much touched by Ruby’s apology. 

“ Never you think about that,” she answered. 
“ I ’ll miss you dreadfully, and I shall never re- 
member anything but the times you have been 
as good as a little lamb ; so you need n’t worry 
you head about that.” 

“Time to start,” called papa again; so Ruby 
climbed up in the front seat, where she was to 
sit with her father, and Aunt Emma and Ruthy 
got in behind her. The little trunk, with Ruby’s 
initials upon it, had already been taken down to 
the station, and was waiting for her there. It 
was quite a little drive to the station, and they 
had not started any too soon, for by the time 
papa had purchased the tickets, and had given 
Ruby the little pocket-book, that he had saved 
for a parting surprise, with a crisp ten-cent bill 
in it, some bright pennies, and in an inside com- 
partment what seemed to Ruby like untold 
wealth, a whole dollar note, the distant whistle 
of the train was heard. And then almost before 
Ruby knew it she had said good-by to Ruthy, 
who could not keep her tears back when she said 
good-by to her little friend, and she was sitting 
by the window, where she could look out at 


THE JOURNEY. 


101 


Ruthy, when the train started, and her papa 
leaned over to give her a last kiss and hug. 

“ Good-by. God bless and keep my little 
daughter,” he said tenderly. 

The engine shrieked and whistled, the bell 
rang, and then with a jerk the train began to 
move, and Ruby looked out, with her face pressed 
close to the window, to see her father just as 
long as she possibly could. He was on the plat- 
form by Ruthy now, and he waved his handker- 
chief as the train started, and threw kisses to 
his little girl. Ruby pressed her face closer and 
closer against the glass, but at last it was of no 
use. There was only an indistinct blur where 
papa and Ruthy had been standing, for Ruby’s 
eyes were so full of tears that she could not see 
them, and by the time she had taken out her 
new handkerchief and wiped them away, the 
train had begun to go so fast that she could not 
see the station at all. It was far behind her, and 
Ruby had really begun her first journey. 

It was hard work not to put her head down in 
Aunt Emma’s lap and cry as much as she wanted 
to, but Ruby glanced about the car, and saw that 
every one else was looking very happy, and watch- 
ing the things that passed by the windows, so she 
thought, with some pride, that if she should cry 
people might not know that it was because she 


102 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


was going away from her dear papa and mamma 
and Ruthy, but they might think that she was 
frightened because she had never been in the 
cars before, and she certainly did not want them 
to know tliat. 

She wiped the tears away from her eyes and 
sat up very straight, looking out of the window 
as if she was very mucli interested in everything 
she saw. Really, she could not have told you 
one thing that they went past. She was fighting 
back the tears, and her longing to have the train 
stopped and get off even now, and go back home 
again, where every one loved her so much; and 
it took all her courage and resolution not to 
break down. 

Aunt Emma guessed what the little girl was 
thinking about, and she did not disturb her for 
a little while, until she tliought that Ruby could 
talk without letting the tears come. 

Then, all at once, she began to talk about the 
places they would pass on their way to school, 
and Ruby grew so interested in listening to her 
that the lump in her throat went away, and she 
really began to enjoy the journey. 

She looked about the car at the other passen- 
gers, and she wondered whether they all knew 
that she was going away to school and had a 
little trunk of her very own. It seemed to Ruby 


THE JOURNEY. 


103 


as if it was such an important occasion that 
somehow every one must know, even if they 
had not been told about it. 

It was very pleasant to travel, she decided, after 
a little while, and she wondered why it was that 
when she looked out of the window, it seemed 
as if everything was running past the train, 
instead of the train seeming to be in motion. 
It was very funny, and Ruby almost laughed 
when they passed a field full of cows, which shot 
by the window as if they had been running with 
all their might, when really they had been stand- 
ing quite still, looking with soft, wondering eyes 
at the noisy monster that shrieked and whistled 
as it rushed on its way, drawing a long train of 
cars after it. 


CHAPTER X. 


MAKING FRIENDS. 

By and by a man dressed in blue clothes 
with brass buttons came through the car, stop- 
ping at each seat and looking at people’s 
tickets. 

‘‘ That is the conductor, and he wants to look 
at the tickets,” said Aunt Emma. “ Would you 
like to give him the tickets. Ruby ? ” 

Of course Ruby wanted to do this, and she 
changed places with Aunt Emma, and sat at the 
end of the seat, waiting for the conductor to 
come. 

She felt very grown-up and important as she 
handed the little pieces of pasteboard to him, 
and wondered whether he would think that she 
was taking her Aunt Emma on a journey 
because she had the tickets ; but the conductor 
rather disappointed her. He did not seem to be 
at all surprised that a little girl should give him 
the tickets, but he took them and after looking 
at them for a moment, punched a little hole in 
them. 


MAKING FRIENDS. 


105 


This did not please Ruby at all. She had not 
noticed that he had done this same thing to 
every one else’s ticket, and she exclaimed, — 

“Please don’t do that, you will spoil those 
tickets, and they are all we have got.” 

The conductor smiled, and so did several other 
people who had heard Ruby’s speech. 

“ I have n’t spoiled the tickets, sissy,” the con- 
ductor said good-naturedly. 

When he went on to the next seat Ruby 
showed the tickets to lier Aunt Emma. 

“He says he did not spoil them, but I just 
think he did,” she whispered. “ I think it spoils 
tickets to have a hole made in them, don’t you. 
Aunt Emma ? Now spose they are not good any 
more, how shall we get to school ? Will they put 
us off the cars ? ” 

“The tickets will be all right, Ruby,” Aunt 
Emma answered smilingly. “Now put them 
back in my pocket-book again, so that they will 
not get lost, and by and by another conductor 
will get on the train and will want to see them, 
and then you shall show them to him.” 

“ Will he make another hole in them ? ” asked 
Ruby, who still felt as if the tickets would be 
much nicer without the little hole in them. 

“ Yes, there will be three more holes made 
in them before we give them up,” Aunt Emma 
answered. 


106 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“ Give them up ? ” echoed Ruby. “ What do 
you mean, Aunt Emma ? We don’t give them to 
any body, do we ? ” 

“ Yes, just before we get off the cars the con- 
ductor will take them.” 

“ It seems pretty dreadful to spend so much 
money for tickets and then not be allowed to 
keep them,” Ruby said. “ Don’t you think he 
would let me keep mine just to remember the 
journey by, if I should ask him ?” 

“No, he could not do that,” Aunt Emma 
answered. “ You will have to give yours up 
just as every one else will. But you have had 
a long ride for the ticket, you know. Ruby, so 
you must not feel as if your ticket had been 
taken away and you had received nothing in 
exchange.” 

“ Oh, I forgot that,” Ruby answered, and then 
she leaned her face against the window and 
looked out again at the places they were passing. 
By and by the old gentleman in the seat in 
front of Ruby looked around and when lie saw 
the little girl, he smiled at her with a pair of 
very kind blue eyes, and said, — 

“ Little girl, don’t you want to come in here 
and visit me a little while ? ” 

Ruby was very willing to do this, for she was 
tired of looking out of the window, and Aunt 


MAKING FRIENDS. 


107 


Emma had a headache and did not feel like 
talking ; so in a minute she had slipped past her 
aunt, and was in the next seat, very willing to 
be entertained. 

The old gentleman was very fond of little 
girls, and as he had a whole host of grand- 
children, he knew just what little girls and boys 
liked. He told Ruby some funny stories about 
the way people had to travel before steam cars 
were in use, and then he told her about the first 
school he ever went to, and how he had to go all 
alone, and had a pretty hard time with the older 
boys, who were very fond of teasing younger 
ones. 

Ruby was very much interested, and told him 
in return that she, too, was going to school for 
the first time. 

By and by a boy came through the cars with 
a basket on his arm. 

“ Oranges, apples, bananas, pears,” he called 
out, and the old gentleman beckoned to him. 

“ Come here, and let this little lady choose 
what she would like to have,” he said ; and the 
boy brought the basket to Ruby, and rested it 
upon the arm of the seat, while she looked 
into it. 

The old gentleman was very, very nice, she 
thought, for he not only knew how to be so 


108 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


entertaining, but he called Ruby “ a little lady,” 
and if there was one thing in all the world that 
Ruby liked better than another it was to be con- 
sidered grown-up, and to be spoken of as a little 
lady. 

The old gypsy woman had called her a little 
lady, tliough Ruby did not like to remember 
her, but it was quite proper that a little girl 
who was going to boarding-school should be 
considered grown-up, even if she did not have 
long dresses on. 

“ What will you have, my dear ? ” asked the 
old gentleman. “Will you have an orange or 
a banana, or is there something else you would 
prefer ? ” 

A large yellow Bartlett pear attracted Ruby’s 
eyes. 

“ I think I would like this,” she answered. 

“Very well, my dear,” he said. “Now as 
my eyes are not very good, would you be kind 
enough to take some money out of my pocket- 
book and pay the boy ? ” 

This was even still more delightful, and Ruby 
felt as if long dresses could not make her feel 
one inch more grown-up than she felt when she 
opened the big purse with its brass clasps, took 
out some money, and paid the boy, receiving 
some pennies in change which she dropped 
back into the purse again. 


MAKING FRIENDS. 


109 


“ I see you are quite used to making pur- 
chases/’ said the old gentleman, with a funny 
little twinkle in his eye, as he watched the 
happy little face beside him. 

“ I don’t very often buy anything and pay the 
money for it,” Ruby said truthfully. “ That is, 
except at the store, and that don’t seem to 
count because mamma always gives me just 
the right money, all wrapped up so I won’t 
lose it. But I think it is very nice to buy 
things. Did n’t you want a pear, too, sir ? ” 

‘‘No, thank you,” answered the old gentle- 
man. “ Now would you like to have me fix 
the pear so you can eat it without getting any 
juice upon your pretty dress ? ” 

“ Yes, please,” Ruby answered, so he spread 
a newspaper upon his lap, and taking out his 
knife, cut the pear into quarters, and proceeded 
to peel it, and cut it into nice little pieces, just 
the right size to eat. 

Ruby watched him with a great deal of inter- 
est. She liked him more and more all the time, 
and she was quite sure that it would be very 
nice to be one of his grandchildren, of whom 
he had told her. 

It had been some time now since Ruby and 
Aunt Emma had started upon their journey, 
and when Aunt Emma saw what the old gen- 


110 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


tleman was doing she leaned forward and 
offered Ruby the lunch-basket. 

It would be very nice for you to eat your 
lunch now, if you are hungry,” she said. “ Sup- 
pose you eat a sandwich first, and then the pear, 
and some cake afterwards. You can offer the 
basket to your friend, and perhaps he would 
like a sandwich, too.” 

Ruby was very much pleased to find that the 
old gentleman thought that this would be a very 
good plan, and that he was glad of a sandwich, 
so the party had quite a little picnic together. 
Aunt Emma ate her lunch too, and Ruby spread 
the white napkin that was in the top of the 
lunch-box over her lap, and laid the sand- 
wiches out upon it, so that the old gentleman 
might help himself. 

The pear was such a big one that Ruby could 
divide it both with the old gentleman and with 
Aunt Emma and still have plenty for herself, 
and some time passed very pleasantly in eating 
the lunch, and putting what was left carefully 
back into the box again. 

By this time Ruby had begun to be very tired 
of riding in the cars. She did not want to look 
out of the window any more, and she began to 
feel a little homesick. She grew very quiet, as 
she began to wonder what Ruthy was doing just 


MAKING FRIENDS. 


Ill 


now. The old gentleman had told her that it 
was eleven o’clock, so she knew that Kuthy was 
probably having a nice game at recess with the 
other children. This was the first day of school 
at home, and Ruby remembered how she had 
always enjoyed that first day. . It was so pleas- 
ant to put everything to rights in her desk just 
as she meant to have it all the year, to have her 
old seat by Ruthy where she had sat ever since 
she first began to go to school, and to look at 
the new scholars, and wonder whether she would 
have much trouble in keeping at the head of the 
class. 

The old gentleman wondered what made his 
little companion so quiet, and looking down at 
her, he saw the tears beginning to gather in her 
eyes. He guessed a little of what she was 
thinking about. Of course he could not know 
all about school, and about Ruthy, but he knew 
she was thinking about some one at home. 

He looked back, and saw that Aunt Emma 
had put her head down upon the back of the 
seat, and with a handkerchief over her face was 
trying to take a little nap in the hope that it 
would help her aching head. He wandered what 
he could do to keep Ruby from becoming home- 
sick and tired. 

“ Let me tell you about one of my little grand- 


112 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


children,’^ he said, and Ruby winked the tears 
away and looked up at him. “ She is a little 
girl just about your age, and sometimes when 
we go on a journey together, as we often do, 
— for every year I go and get her, and bring 
her to stay with me for two or three weeks in 
the summer time, — she gets tired of riding in 
the cars so long at once, and what do you 
suppose she does ? ’’ 

“ What does she do ? ” asked Ruby. 

“ She reaches into my pocket, — this outside 
pocket, here, — and takes out this handkerchief, 
so,” and the old gentleman drew out a large 
silk handkerchief from the pocket that was 
next to Ruby. “ Then she spreads it upon my 
shoulder just so, — and I put my arm about her, 
and she cuddles up to me and puts her head 
down on the handkerchief and takes a nice nap. 
Then when she wakes up we are almost ready 
to get off, and she has not minded the long ride. 
I wonder if you would not like to put your head 
down here a few minutes, and see if you like it 
as well as Elbe does. And then if such a thing 
should happen as that you should go to sleep, 
why, that would be so much the better.” 

Ruby hesitated. She did not feel as if any 
one who was old enough to go to boarding-school 
ought to be such a baby as to go asleep on the 


MAKING FRIENDS. 


113 


way, but she was very tired. She had awakened 
almost before it was light that morning, and she 
had been so excited over her journey that she 
could not keep still for a moment, and then the 
long ride was making her still more tired. The 
handkerchief, and the strong arm looked very 
inviting, and when she looked back and saw that 
Aunt Emma had gone to sleep, too, that quite 
decided her. 

She slipped up nearer to the old gentleman, 
and taking off her hat, handed it to him to put 
up in the rack over head. Then she laid her 
head down upon the silk handkerchief, and lie 
put his arm about her, and drew her up closely 
to him. 

“ It makes me think of the way papa holds 
me,” she said, but the thought of her papa made 
two big tears splash down upon the silk- hand- 
kerchief. 

“ Shall I tell you where I went with my father 
when I was a little boy,” the old gentleman 
asked, — without seeming to notice the tears, 
— and then he began a long story which some- 
how put the tired little girl fast asleep, and the 
next thing she knew. Aunt Emma was telling 
her that it was time for her to think about 
getting her hat on, for they had almost reached 
their journey’s end. 


8 


114 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“ Have I been asleep ? ” asked Ruby, starting 
up and rubbing her eyes. 

“ I should say so,” said the old gentleman, 
looking at his watch. ‘‘ Guess how long a nap 
you have taken, little girl.” 

“ Ten minutes ? ” asked Ruby, who thought 
she must only have just closed her eyes, since 
she could not remember having slept at all. 
The last thing that she remembered was listen- 
ing to the old gentleman’s story, and then it had 
seemed as if the very next thing was being 
awakened by Aunt Emma’s voice. 

“ Ten minutes, and ever so much more,” the 
old gentleman answered with a smile. “ You 
have been asleep just two hours.” 

“ Two hours ! ” and Ruby’s eyes were wide 
open with surprise. “ Why, I never remembered 
that.” 

You were sleeping too sound to remember 
anything,” her friend said. 

“Well, I am glad you have had a nice rest, 
and now you will enjoy reaching your journey’s 
end all the more. I shall miss you very much 
when you get out, for you have been very 
pleasant company.” 

“ I wasn’t very nice when I was asleep, I am 
afraid,” said Ruhy, “ It was n’t very polite of 
me to go to sleep, was it?” 


MAKING FRIENDS. 


115 


“ Oh, yes it was when I invited you to,” 
the gentleman said. “And I enjoyed it, for 
it seemed just like having my little grand- 
daughter here with me.” 

Aunt Emma helped Ruby put her hat on 
straight, and brushed the dust from her dress. 
The engine began to whistle, and that meant 
that they were very near a station. 

Ruby said good-by to her kind friend, and he 
gave her his card with his name upon it, and 
asked her to write him a letter after she had 
been at school a little while and tell him how 
she liked it, and how she was getting on in her 
lessons. 

Ruby promised that she would ; and then the 
train began to go more slowly, and at last 
stopped with a little jerk at a station, and 
Aunt Emma said, — 

“ Here we are at last, Ruby.” 

For just a moment Ruby was not glad. She 
suddenly began to feel a little shy about board- 
ing school, and remembered what she had not 
thought much about before, — that she would 
have to meet a great many strange girls, and 
that it would take some time to become ac- 
quainted with them, — and she wished again, as 
she had wished many times before, that Rutliy 
might have come with her ; but she had not 


116 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


much time to think about anything, for the 
train did not wait very long for people to get 
out, and in a few moments Aunt Emma and 
Ruby were on the platform of the station and 
Ruby was waving good-by to the kind old gen- 
tleman, who was leaning out of the window to 
see the last of his little friend. 


CHAPTER XI. 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 

There were several cars, and a great many 
people got out of them, for this was a junction, 
and some who were not going to stop here got 
out that they miglit take a train that would 
carry them where they wanted to go. 

“We must wait till I see about our trunks,” 
said Aunt Emma ; and leaving Ruby in a safe 
corner, she went to look after the baggage and 
give the checks to the expressman who was 
waiting to take the trunks up to the school. 

Ruby stood very still looking about her. It 
was a very busy place, and there was a good 
deal to see. After the train upon which she 
had come had drawn out of the station and gone 
puffing and panting upon its way, so that she 
could not see her friend the kind old gentleman 
any more, another train came into the station 
that was going the other way, and a few people 
got off, while a great many of those who were 
waiting in the station got upon it. 


118 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


A lady with a little girl and a great many 
bags and bundles got off this last train, and per- 
haps you can guess how surprised Ruby was 
when she found it was some one whom she 
knew. 

I wonder if you could guess who it was. I 
do not believe you could, so I will tell you. It 
was Maude Birkenbaum and her mother who 
had come upon this other train. 

“ Oh, I so wonder if she is going to boarding- 
school too,’^ thought Ruby. “ I never, never 
spected to see that girl again, but I don’t know 
but what I am maybe a very little glad to see 
her, for I don’t know one single other of the 
girls here, and it would be so lonesome for a 
while. She sha’n’t make me do bad things now 
anyhow, for I am ever so much older than I was 
when she got me into so many troubles that 
summer.” 

Ruby had been told not to go away from the 
place where Aunt Emma had left her, so even to 
speak to Maude she would not leave it ; but she 
did not need to, for in a few minutes Mrs. 
Birkenbaum went to the baggage-room, and 
Maude walked about looking around her. 

In a little while her eyes fell upon Ruby, and 
she rushed forward with an exclamation of 
pleasure. 



Ruby meeting Maude at the Station. 


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AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 


119 


“ Why, Ruby Harper ! ’’ she exclaimed, quite 
as much surprised at seeing Ruby as Ruby had 
been to see her. “ I never thought of your 
being here. What are you doing here anyway ?” 

“ I am going to boarding-school,” answered 
Ruby, “ and that is my trunk ; ” and she pointed 
to her pretty little black trunk, which the ex- 
pressman was putting upon the wagon, that was 
getting quite a load of baggage by this time. 

I wonder if you are going to the same school 
that I am,” said Maude. “ I do hope you are, 
for then we can have such good times together. 
I am going to Miss Chalmer’s Home Boarding- 
School for Young Ladies. Where are you going ? ” 
“ I don’t know,” admitted Ruby, unwillingly. 
It had never occurred to her to ask her Aunt 
Emma the name of the school ; indeed I do not 
think that she knew that any school had a par- 
ticular name any more than the school at home 
did. That was always called the school, and so 
Ruby had thought that this new school was 
simply a boarding-school. How dreadful it 
would be if Maude was going to a Boarding- 
School for Young Ladies, and she herself should 
be going to a school for children. 

“ You don’t know,” echoed Maude. How 
funny. You are just as funny as ever. Ruby 
Harper. I never heard of any one starting out 


120 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


to go to boarding-school without knowing where 
they were going.” 

“Well, I didn’t need to know, or I should 
have asked,” said Ruby, with some dignity. “ I 
came with my Aunt Emma, and she is a teacher 
in this school that I am going to, and so I did 
not have to know anything about it. She brought 
me with her.” 

“ Oh,” said Maude, in more respectful tones. 

To have an aunt who taught in a boarding- 
school was a great thing in Maude’s eyes, and it 
made her less inclined to patronize Ruby. 

“ I do hope it is the same school,” she went 
on presently, really glad in the bottom of her 
selfish little heart to see some one whom she 
had known before, for this was her first time 
too of leaving home. “ We will have such nice 
times together, and I have ever and ever so 
many things to show you. You just ought to 
see all the dresses I have brought with me.” 

“ And so have I,” Ruby answered. “ My 
trunk is just full of them, and I had a dress- 
maker sewing them for a whole week before I 
came away from home.” 

“ Did you ? ” asked Maude, and Ruby was 
pleased to notice that she spoke as if this fact 
made her have a higher opinion of Ruby. “ I 
thought your mamma always made your dresses.” 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 


121 


“ She always used to, but she is sick now,’’ 
said Ruby, and the lump rose in her throat again 
at the thought that she was miles away from her 
mother. ‘‘ So we had Miss Abigail Hart come 
and stay a whole week and sew on them all the 
time.” 

“ You must have a nice lot then,” said Maude. 
“ I am glad, for if we are going to be friends, I 
should not like to have the other girls think that 
you looked old-fashioned and as if you came 
from the country ; ” and foolish little Maude 
tossed her head, and looked complacently down 
upon her pretty travelling-dress. 

Perhaps if Ruby had not been thinking about 
her mother just then, she would have been very 
angry at Maude’s words, and the two children 
would have begun to quarrel at once ; but think- 
ing of her promise to her mother, the very last 
thing, that she would really try to be good, and 
do just what she knew was right. Ruby con- 
trolled the hasty words, and said pleasantly, — 

“ Well, even if my dresses are not as pretty 
as yours, Maude, the girls won’t think that it is 
your fault. Here comes Aunt Emma. Won’t 
she be surprised to' find that I know somebody 
here in tliis strange place ? ” 

Aunt Emma was quite as surprised as Ruby 
had supposed she would be, and presently 


122 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


Maude’s mamma came up, and was very glad to 
find that Maude was going to have an old friend 
for a sclK)ol-fellow. 

“ Ruby is a good little girl, and she will keep 
Maude straight, I hope,” she said to Ruby’s aunt ; 
and it was all Ruby could do to keep from look- 
ing as proud as she felt, to think that Maude’s 
mamma should say that she was a good little 
girl. 

Ruby did not feel as if she quite deserved the 
praise, but it was very pleasant nevertheless. 
She made up her mind that she would really 
try to be good and keep from getting angry at 
Maude when she said provoking things, and if 
possible she would help Maude to be good in- 
stead of doing wrong things that she proposed. 

By this time all the trunks were in the wagon 
and on their way to the school ; and Ruby and 
Maude, with Aunt Emma and Mrs. Birkenbaum, 
set out to walk, for it was not a very great 
distance. 

The two little girls walked together in front, 
and the ladies came after more slowly. 

“ I wonder what boarding-school will be like,” 
said Ruby presently. 

“ I suppose it will be perfectly dreadful,” said 
Maude. “ I know some girls that went to 
boarding-school once, and they told me that it 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 123 

was awful. They never had enough to eat, and 
they had to study all the time, and they got so 
homesick that they tried to run away, but the 
teacher caught them and brought them back 
again.” 

Ruby looked horrified. 

“ Do you spose that was really true that they 
did not have eiiougli to eat ? ” she asked. 

“ Of course it ’s true, for these girls told me 
so,” Maude answered. “ I have brought a whole 
lot of cake and candy in my trunk, and I will 
give you some when I eat it, Ruby. My mamma 
is going to send me a box every month, so they 
sha’n’t starve me, anyway.” 

Ruby turned back and exclaimed, — 

“ Aunt Emma, do they give the girls enough 
to eat at this school ?” 

Aunt Emma laughed. 

“ Why, of course they do,” she answered. 
“ Whatever put that notion into your head. 
Ruby ? The girls have all they can eat of good, 
wholesome food, and it is just as nice as it is at 
home.” 

Ruby looked contented, and went on again. 

“ I did n’t spose you would go and ask your 
aunt about what I said,” Maude remarked 
presently in rather annoyed tones. “ Now don’t 
tell her one single word about the cake and 


124 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


candy I have in my trunk, or she may tell the 
other teachers, and they will take it away from 
me. I know all about what things the teachers 
will do at boarding-school.” 

“ I guess my auntie would n’t do anything 
mean,” Ruby answered rather hotly. ‘‘ Anyway, 
Maude, perhaps this boarding-school isn’t like 
the one that those girls went to. Aunt Emma 
said it would be ever so nice here, and she ought 
to know, for she has lived here ever since I was a 
little bit of a girl. I was only three years old 
when she began to teach here.” 

“ Perhaps it is nice, and then perhaps again 
she has got used to it, and don’t notice that it 
is n’t pleasant,” said Maude. Anyway, I am 
ever so glad that you are here. Ruby, for it will 
be ever so much pleasanter having somebody I 
know.” 

“ Turn the corner now. Ruby,” called Aunt 
Emma, as the little girls came to the corner of 
a street, and going around the corner they found 
that they were close to the school. 

Both the children were sure that it must be 
the school even before Aunt Emma said, — 

“ Here we are, girls. Does it not look like a 
pleasant place ? ” 

It did, indeed, look very pleasant, and even 
Maude, who was disposed to find fault, could not 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 125 

raise any objection to the large, rambling brick 
house, with wide porches running all around it, 
shaded with vines, and surrounded on every side 
by large lawns and a pretty garden. 

A row of great elms spread their wide 
branches upon both sides of the street, and 
just opposite the school stood a pretty church, 
with its spire reaching up among the trees, and 
ivy climbing over its stone walls. 

Several little girls about as large as Ruby and 
Maude, as well as a few older ones, were amusing 
themselves upon the lawn, and they all looked 
very happy. 

“ Well, Maude, this is n’t as bad as you 
thought it was going to be, is it ? ” asked 
Maude’s mamma. 

“ No,” admitted Maude. “ It looks nice 
enough outside, but remember, mamma, if I 
don’t like it I am going to run away and come 
home.” 

Aunt Emma looked at Maude, when she heard 
the little girl talking this way, and began to feel 
sorry that she had come, if she was going to say 
such naughty things. She did not want Ruby 
to have for a friend a little girl who would be 
more likely to help her get into mischief than to 
help her be good. 

Maude looked up and saw Miss Emma’s eyes 


126 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


fixed upon her with grave disapproval, and then 
she remembered that she had been talking about 
running away before one of the teachers. 

“ Oh, I don’t really mean that,” she said. I 
won’t run away, for papa said if I stayed and 
was good he would give me a watch that really 
goes and keeps time, for Christmas.” 

“ I am glad you did not mean it,” said Miss 
Emma. “ You need not be afraid of being un- 
happy if you are good and obey the rules. Of 
course you will miss your mamma and papa for 
a little while, but you will soon be so interested 
in your studies and play that you will be con- 
tented, I hope. Our little girls are all very 
happy after the first few days.” 

Just then they entered the gate, and Ruby 
felt quite shy as she took hold of her aunt’s 
hand, and stayed close beside her. 

There were so many strange little girls that 
Ruby thought she would never get acquainted 
with all of them. She was not used to feeling 
shy, but then she had never seen so many 
strangers before. They went up the steps, upon 
the shaded porch, — where two little girls were 
sitting in a hammock reading, and looked as 
if they were birds in a nest, — and rang the bell. 
Aunt Emma raised the great knocker upon the 
front door and rapped loudly. 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 


127 


Ruby was quite interested in looking at the 
knocker while they were waiting for the door to 
be opened. It was a lion’s head, and it looked 
very fierce with its open mouth and sharp teeth. 
She wondered if she could reach it and rap with 
it if she stood on tiptoe, and she was just going 
to ask Aunt Emma to let her try, when the door 
opened, and a maid took them into the parlor. 

Ruby looked about her with wondering eyes. 
So this was boarding-school. 


CHAPTER XII. 


MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 

They did not have to wait long for Miss 
Chapman, the principal of the school, to come 
in. Almost before the girl had closed the par- 
lor door, and before Ruby had had time to do 
much more than glance about the room, the 
door opened again, and the dearest and sweetest 
of Quaker ladies came in. She had on a plain 
gray dress, and a white handkerchief was folded 
about her neck. She wore a little white cap 
over her silver hair, and her eyes were so kind 
that Ruby was quite sure that she should love 
her very, very much, and should never do any- 
thing to displease her if she could help it. 

Miss Chapman greeted Aunt Emma very 
warmly, and was introduced to Mrs. Birken- 
baum, and then she turned to the cliildren. 

“ So these are the little girls I have been 
expecting,” she said, shaking hands with them. 

She asked them a few questions about their 
journey, and whether they had come together, 
and then she talked again with the ladies. 


MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 


129 


While this conversation was going on, the 
children looked about them, Maude no less 
curiously than Ruby, for boarding-school was 
a new experience to her, too. 

It was a pleasant room. In one corner of it 
was a table with a globe upon it, and some 
books, and in another corner was a what-not, 
with shells and other curious things that Ruby 
wished she might go over and examine. 

She was wondering whether she might not 
whisper to Aunt Emma how eager she was to 
go over to the what-not, and ask whether she 
might do so, when Miss Chapman rose, and 
took the party up to their rooms. Ruby was 
to room with her Aunt Emma, which was a 
very good arrangement for more than one 
reason ; for she would be less apt to be home- 
sick with her aunt, and besides that she would 
not be in danger of transgressing rules by speak- 
ing to other pupils after the lights had been put 
out for the night. 

Maude was to room with one of the other 
girls, and her room was at the end of the hall. 
It was a very comfortable little room with two 
little white beds in it, but Maude did not seem 
very well satisfied with it. The room in which 
Ruby was to sleep was larger, because it was a 
teacher’s room, and it did not please Maude to 
9 


130 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


find that Ruby or indeed any one else, should 
have anything that was better than what she 
herself had. She looked very sullen, but she 
did not say anything while Miss Chapman was 
upstairs. 

After Miss Emma and Ruby had gone to tlieir 
own room and she was left alone with her 
mother in the room which she was to share, 
she tlirew herself down upon one of the beds, 
exclaiming angrily, — 

“I don’t want to stay here, mamma. I just 
wish you would either make them give me the 
nicest room in the house, or take me home with 
you. Do you spose I want a mean little room 
like this when Ruby Harper has such a nice 
one ? The idea of a little country girl having 
a better room than I have ! I won’t stay if T 
have to have this room, so.” 

Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Birkenbaum, soothingly. 
‘‘Yes, you will stay, Maude. The only reason 
that Ruby has a larger room is because it is her 
aunt’s room, and of course a teacher has to have 
a larger and nicer room than the scholars. It 
will be ever so much nicer to be in this room. 
I am sure you would not like to be in the same 
room with a teacher and have her listening to 
everything you said. And now mind, you must 
be careful what you say to Ruby, for she 


MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 131 

will probably tell her aunt everything, and the 
teachers won’t like you if you complain about 
things. Don’t fuss about the room, that is a 
good child, and I will send you a new ring, and 
you shall have a great big box of cake every 
month, and then all the other girls will want to 
be friends with you. This is a nice room ; see, 
it has two windows.” 

But Maude did not feel disposed to let herself 
be coaxed into liking the room. 

“ It ’s a horrid little bit of a room,” she re- 
peated again, pettishly. I don’t like it, and I 
won’t stay, unless you send me a beautiful ring. 
What kind of a ring will it be, if I stay, 
mamma ? ” 

“ What kind of a ring would you like ? ” asked 
her mother. “ You shall tell me just what you 
would like, and I wdll coax papa to buy it for 
you.” 

“ I want a ring with red and blue stones in 
it,” said Maude, sitting up, and looking less 
unhappy now that she was interested in her 
ring. “ If papa will send me a ring like that 
then maybe I will stay, but you must remember 
to send me lots of cake and candy.” 

Very well, dear, I will,” said her mother, 
pleased at having coaxed the wilful little girl 
into submission. 


132 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“And you will be good, too, won’t you, Maude? 
You know papa wants you to learn something, 
and you won’t learn anything at home, so we 
want you to get along in your lessons here. 
Don’t let little Ruby Harper beat you in every- 
thing. You are ever so much smarter than she 
is, if you only study.” 

“ I guess I am smarter,” said Maude, tossing 
her head. “ Ruby is only a country girl, and 
I guess I can beat her in lessons and every- 
thing else if I make up my mind to it, but if I 
study you must give me everything I want for 
Christmas.” 

“ Yes, we will,” her mother answered. “Now 
get up and let me brush your hair, Maude, and 
we will go downstairs for a little while, and look 
about, and then 1 will unpack your trunk, and 
get things settled for you.” 

Maude felt better-natured by this time, so she 
got up from the bed, and let her mother brush 
her hair, and forgot to complain about things, 
or make bargains concerning her Christmas 
presents, while she looked through the window 
and watched the girls playing ring-toss down 
on the lawn. 

“ The girls that go to this school are n't one 
bit stylish,” she said presently. “I guess I 
shall have nicer clothes than any of them. I 


MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 133 

wonder if they are nice girls. Do you spose 
I shall like them, mamma ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, I am sure you will,” said her 
mother, encouragingly. “ They are very nice, 
I am sure, and you will be so happy here that 
you won’t hardly want to come home for the 
holidays. It won’t be long before Christmas 
comes, so if you get homesick you must 
remember that.” 

“ I guess I won’t be homesick, if I can do as I 
want, and have plenty of candy and cake,” said 
Maude, carelessly. “ I am glad Ruby Harper is 
here, I shall not be so lonely then.” 

You must give her some of the things I send 
you,” said her mother. 

“ I will see,” said Maude. “ If she does as I 
want her to I will, but I am not going to give 
them all away. I want to keep some for myself.’ 

“Now your hair looks all right,” said her 
mother, giving one last brush to the waves of 
tightly crimped hair that fell below Maude’s 
waist. “We will go downstairs and see the 
school-room, and look about the garden.” 

In the mean time Ruby had been helping Aunt 
Emma unpack her little trunk and she was so 
impatient to see what was in the mysterious 
package that Orpah had given her that she could 
scarcely wait for the trunk to be unlocked. 


134 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


She lifted it out, and laid it on the bed, and 
untied the string. 

“ See if you can guess what is in it,” she said 
to Aunt Emma. 

1 guess a work-box,” Aunt Emma said. 

“ I can’t guess at all,” Ruby answered, as she 
opened the paper, and found another wrapping 
of tissue paper covering the gift. 

“ Oh, Aunt Emma, what do you spose it is ? 
See how carefully it is wrapped up.” 

She unfolded the tissue paper, and then she 
gave a little scream of delight. I think you 
would have been just as delighted as Ruby her- 
self was, if you had had such a beautiful gift. 

It was a little writing-desk, with a plate on 
the top, with the word Ruby engraved upon it, 
and a lock in front, with a little key in it. When 
Ruby turned the key, and opened the lid, she 
was more delighted even than she had been at 
first ; for surely, no little girl ever had a prettier 
desk, with a more complete outfit in it. 

There was a pretty little inkstand in onQ little 
compartment, with a silver top which screwed 
on so tightly that the ink could not possibly spill 
out when Ruby carried the desk around, and in 
the opposite compartment was a little silver box 
for- stamps. There was a place for pen-holders 
and pencils, and when Ruby took off its cover 


MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 135 

and looked into it, she found the dearest pen- 
holder of silver, with her initial upon it, and a 
pen in it all ready for use. There was a little 
silver pencil in it too, that opened and shut, when 
it was screwed and unscrewed. Then there was 
a place for paper, and envelopes, and another 
place in which to keep all the dear home letters, 
that Ruby knew she was going to receive every 
week. 

The envelopes were pink and cream, and 
chocolate and a pale blue, to match the paper, 
and they all had “ H ” upon them just as if they 
had been made especially for Ruby. 

Orpah had directed one of the envelopes to 
herself, and put a stamp upon it all ready for 
Ruby to write to her. 

^ 4-11 this was enough to make Ruby forget that 
she was tired and away from home, and to make 
her eyes shine like stars ; but there was still 
something else, that I think she liked better than 
everything else in the desk put together. 

Perhaps, it was because it was something that 
she had never dreamed that she should possess 
for her very own, that she was so delighted with 
it. There was a little outfit of sealing-wax, with 
sticks of different-colored wax, tiny tapers, and 
a little candlestick just big enough to hold such 
wee bits of candles, in the shape of a pond lily, 


136 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


and a little seal with R ”on it. So when Ruby 
had written her letters and put them in their 
envelopes, she could light one of the little tapers, 
drop some wax upon the back of the envelope, 
and press it down with the seal, just as she had 
seen her papa do. 

“ Oh, oh, oh,” she cried, in delight. “ I do 
think Orpah is just the nicest girl. Did you 
ever see anything quite so perfectly lovely. Aunt 
Emma ? You shall use it when you write letters, 
if you want to, and oh, may I write a letter this 
very minute, and seal it with my seal ? ’’ 

“ Not just this minute, dear,” said her aunt, 
smiling at her eagerness. “ Wait until we have 
unpacked our trunks, and get a little settled, 
and then you may write and tell your mamma 
what a nice journey you had, and how kind the 
old gentleman was to you.” 

It was a very sure indication that Ruby was 
trying to be good, that she did not fret because 
she could not do as she wished that very minute. 
She put the things back in her desk, closed it, 
and locked it with the pretty little key, and said, 
“ Aunt Emma, I do wish I had a little ribbon 
so I could wear this key around my neck.” 

“ I have a nice little piece of blue ribbon that 
I will give you as soon as I open my trunk,” 
Aunt Emma said ; and very soon Ruby had the 


MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 


137 


cunning little key tied fast around her neck, 
where she could put up her hand and feel it 
every now and then, and think of the pretty gift, 
and above all of the sealing-wax, which was the 
chief charm of the desk. 


CHAPTER XIIL 


GETTING SETTLED. 

Both Ruby ^ and Maude felt very shy when 
they went downstairs and saw so many girls 
whom they did not know at all. They were 
very glad that among all those strange girls 
there was at least one whom they each knew. 

“ Was n’t it the funniest thing that we should 
happen to come to the same boarding-school ? ” 
whispered Maude, as she took Ruby’s hand and 
walked up and down the porch, while the scholars 
who had already come and felt very, much at 
home, looked at them half curiously and half 
shyly, no doubt wondering whether they would 
be pleasant schoolmates or not. 

Aunt Emma found that Ruby was quite con- 
tented to stay with Maude, so she went back 
upstairs, where she still had some little things 
to do, and Mrs. Birkenbaum finished unpacking 
Maude’s things, for she had to go away that 
afternoon, and wanted to unpack Maude’s trunk 
before she left. 


GETTING SETTLED. 


139 


Ruby and Maude walked up and down the 
porch for a time and then they went down upon 
the lawn. There was a large lawn in front of 
the house, where the girls usually played. In 
one corner of it there was a croquet set, and as 
this was something new to Ruby, she looked at 
the hoops with a great deal of interest, while 
Maude, who had a set at home explained the 
game to her. 

“ I will show you how to play it, and we will 
play together sometimes,” Maude said. 

There was plenty of room to play tag, and 
puss in the corner, and Ruby thought the trees 
grew in just the right places for that game. 
She wondered if there had been a school there 
when they were planted, and if Miss Chapman 
had planted them so that they would be nice for 
puss in the corner. 

The house was quite large, and when Ruby 
and Maude walked around the lawn towards the 
back of the house, they found the schoolhouse, 
which was connected with the rest of the house 
by a long covered passage-way, so that the girls 
could go backward and forward in wet weather 
without getting wet. 

The school-room was not open, but the chil- 
dren looked through the window, and saw the 
teacher’s desk at one end, blackboards hung 


140 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


upon the walls, and long rows of desks and seats 
for the scholars. 

On the other side of the school-room was the 
garden, with vegetables and flowers, and some 
pear-trees that were laden with fruit. 

“ Those pears look nice, don’t they ? ” said 
Maude. “ 1 wonder if they will let us have some. 
Perhaps Miss Chapman keeps them all for her- 
self. We will have some anyway, won’t we, 
Ruby. Well, I guess we have seen everything 
now. I think I will go upstairs and see if 
mamma has finished unpacking my trunk.” 

Ruby was quite willing to go into the house, 
for she was sure that by this time Aunt Emma 
would have emptied her trunk, and she might 
write her letter liome. 

“ I was just coming to look for you. Ruby 
dear,” said Aunt Emma, as her little niece 
opened the door. “ You can write to your 
mamma now, if you like, and you will just have 
time to write a nice long letter before it is 
supper-time.” 

Ruby untied the ribbon about her neck, took 
the little key off, and opened the desk, with a 
feeling of pride. She was quite sure that there 
could not be a prettier desk in all the world 
than this bne which Orpah had given her, and 
she was very anxious to show it to Maude, and 
surprise her with its beauty. 



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GETTING SETTLED. 


141 


“ What shall I write my letter on first, Aunt 
Emma?” she asked. 

‘‘ Here is a piece of paper and a pencil you 
can use, and then you can copy it afterwards,” 
said Aunt Emma ; so Ruby sat down at a little 
table by the window, and wrote to her mother. 

When she had finished her letter and Aunt 
Emma had looked it over, and corrected the few 
mistakes in spelling that she found. Ruby opened 
the desk, and putting it upon the table, took out 
some of her pink paper, which she thought was 
the prettiest, and carefully copied the letter. 

‘‘ This ought to be a very nice letter, written 
on such a beautiful desk, with a silver pen- 
holder, ought n’t it. Aunt Emma ? ” she asked. 

“ Yes, dear, and I am sure your mamma will 
think it is very nice,” her aunt answered. 

Ruby was very proud when she finished copy- 
ing it without one single mistake. She did not 
usually have the patience to work so carefully 
but she felt as if such a desk deserved great 
care on the part of its owner. 

Would you like to hear her letter? Here it is : 

My dear Mamma and Papa, — I am writing 
this letter to you on a beautiful new desk that 
Orpah gave me. That was what was in the pack- 
age she made me promise not to open. We had a 
very pleasant journey. There was a very kind old 


142 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


gentleman on the cars, who talked to me and told 
me stories, and he told the boy with a basket 
to let the little lady choose what she wanted, and I 
chose a big pear. I divided it with Aunt Emma 
and the old gentleman. AVhen I was sleepy I put 
my head down on his shoulder the way his little 
grand-daughter does, and I went to sleep and I slept 
ever so long, though I thought it was only a little 
while. It is nice to ride in the cars, but it takes a 
long time. I like this school. I like Miss Chap- 
man. She has white hair like grandma. Her eyes 
are blue. I shall be good, for I like her very much. 
But I shall be good anyway, because I promised 
you. I do want to see you, mamma, and papa, too. 
Aunt Emma has unpacked my trunk, and my things 
are all put away. Maude Birkenbaum is here. 
She was at the station at the same time I was, and 
we walked up together. I mean to be good. Her 
mother said she hoped I would be a help to Maude, 
and I mean to try to be good, instead of doing 
things she wants me to do. I love you a whole 
heartful, mamma and papa. Please write me a 
long letter soon. I hope you will soon be well again, 
mamma. I shall seal this letter with my new seal- 
ing wax, and you must pretend it is a kiss. 

Your loving Kuby. 

Ruby was so impatient to use her new sealing- 
wax outfit that she found it very hard work to 
finish her letter carefully, and write the last 


GETTING SETTLED. 


143 


words just as well as she had written the first 
one. 

“ Do you think ‘ Ruby ’ looks as well as ‘ My 
dear Mamma and Papa ’ ? ” she asked Aunt 
Emma, carrying the paper over to her. 

That was Ruby’s test whether she had been 
careful in writing a letter, to look and see whether 
the last words were as carefully written as the 
first ones. Sometimes, if she had not been very 
careful, one would not think that the same little 
girl had written all the letter. The first few 
lines would be so very neat and carefully written, 
and the last ones would be straggly, and of dif- 
ferent heights and wandering all across the pages. 

But this time Ruby had been very careful in- 
deed. She had left just the same margin all the 
way down the left-hand side of her page, and she 
had been careful in dividing her words, so when 
Aunt Emma liad looked it all over very care- 
fully, she could say that it was just as nice as 
Ruby could possibly have written. 

Then Ruby folded it and put it into one of her 
new envelopes; and then came the most exciting 
part of all. Ruby had never been very fond of 
letter-writing before, but she thought she would 
be perfectly willing to write a letter every day, 
if she might always seal tliem up with wax. 

She put the little pond-lily candlestick out 


144 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


upon the table, on a folded piece of paper, which 
Aunt Emma told her she had better put under 
it lest the melted wax should drop upon the 
table-cloth, and then she took out her little box 
of colored tapers, and tried to decide which one 
she should use first. 

She decided upon the pink one, because that 
matched the color of the paper she had been 
using ; and so she took out a pink taper, and set 
it in the candlestick. It fitted very snugly, so 
there was no danger of its falling out. 

Aunt Emma showed her how to open the little 
silver match-box that Ruby had not discovered 
before in the outfit, and she lighted the taper, 
and then held a stick of green sealing-wax in the 
flame. 

When the end had grown quite soft in the 
heat. Ruby watched it carefully, and let the big 
drop at the end fall just at the right time, and 
in just the right place upon her envelope. Then 
she pressed the seal down upon it, and you can 
guess how proud she was when she saw her 
initial in the wax. 

“ Won’t mamma be surprised when she gets 
this letter?” she asked gleefully. “She will 
wonder where I got the wax, and I am sure she 
will hardly believe that I made such a nice seal 
the very first time I ever used it.” 


GETTING SETTLED. 


145 


“ It looks very well,” said Aunt Emma, ap- 
provingly. “ Now it is just supper-time. Wash 
your hands. Ruby, and we will go downstairs.” 

Before Ruby had quite finished scrubbing off 
the ink spot on her forefinger, the supper-bell 
rang; so she made haste to finish and went down 
with her aunt, feeling very glad that she need 
not go down all alone, as poor Maude had to, 
— for her mother had gone some time before. 
Maude was waiting for Ruby at the foot of the 
stairs, so that slie might go into the dining-room 
with her, and for once the little girl was quite 
subdued. 

She had not expected to mind saying good-by 
to her mother at all, but when it came time for 
her mother to go, and she realized that slie was 
to be left all alone with strangers, with tlie ex- 
ception of Ruby, she cried and cried, and begged 
to be taken home again. 

It was all her mother could do to persuade her 
to stay, and though at last Maude had reluc- 
tantly let her go, yet she had clung about her 
mother’s neck with unusual affection, and found 
it very hard to say good-by. 

There were traces of tears about her eyes now, 
and she held on to Ruby as if she was the only 
friend left now that her mother had gone. 

It seemed like a very long table to Ruby, that 
10 


146 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


the girls and their teachers gathered about as 
they entered the dining-room. Ruby had been 
accustomed to such a small table at home that 
she thought this one must be “ miles long,” as 
she said to herself. Miss Chapman sat at one 
end, and Aunt Emma sat at the other, with Ruby 
on one side of her and Maude beside Ruby. 

The meal was rather a quiet one. Some of 
the girls were new scholars, and they were a 
little homesick, and as evening came they were 
wishing for home again, and the scholars who 
had been there before were thinking about their 
studies, and their plans for the new year, and 
were not disposed to talk much. 

After supper the girls all pushed their chairs 
back from the table and sat in a wide circle 
about the room, and Miss Chapman read prayers. 

After this they all went up to the sitting-room, 
a large cheerful room with a small bookcase 
of books in one corner, and a closet full of 
games. 

The first evening at school was apt to be rather 
a quiet one, and Miss Chapman told the girls as 
they left the dining-room, that if any of them 
wished to go to bed that evening before the 
usual hour, they had permission to do so. 

Perhaps Ruby had a nicer time than any of 
the other new scholars. She had her aunt with 


GETTING SETTLED. 


147 


her, which made a very great difference; and 
then she was very much interested in listening 
to the talk of the girls who had been there be- 
fore, as they crowded about Aunt Emma and 
told her of what they had been doing during 
their vacation. 

Maude was not at all pleased when she found 
that no one paid any particular attention to her, 
and she sat by herself with a very discontented 
look upon her face. 

One of the girls came up to her after a time, 
and asked her if she would like to take part in a 
game, but Maude refused, sullenly, and after 
that no one else spoke to her. 

“ I shall go home just as soon as mamma can 
come and get me,” she said to herself. “ I don’t 
like this place one single bit. No one pays a 
bit of attention to me, and my dress is ever so 
much nicer tlian any one else’s. I think Ruby 
might come and sit by me, instead of staying 
with her aunt, so I do.” 

But Ruby was very happy where she was. 
She had not forgotten Maude, and when they 
had first gone into the sitting-room, she had 
invited Maude to come and sit beside her ; but 
as Maude had refused, wishing Ruby to come 
over to her, she had concluded that Maude 
wished to be by herself, and was listening to 


148 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


the talk going on about her, without thinking 
any more about Maude. 

At eight o’clock all the girls went up to bed, 
and Miss Chapman told them that in half an 
hour a bell would be rung, and that then they 
must put their lights out, and not talk any more 
to one another that night. 

Some of the girls who were tired had gone to 
bed earlier, but most of the scholars had stayed 
downstairs until that hour. The next day would 
be tlie first day of regular school, and Miss 
Chapman told them that she hoped they would 
all sleep well so as to be fresh for their studies 
in the morning. 

When Ruby was in her room, she realized for 
the first time with all her heart how much 
happier she was than those girls who had come 
quite alone. If she had not Aunt Emma she 
did not know what she should have done, she 
should have been so lonely. As it was, all her 
chatter stopped as she began to get undressed, 
and though Aunt Emma talked on about every- 
thing that she thought would interest her little 
niece, yet Ruby’s answers grew more and more 
infrequent, and Aunt Emma guessed that she 
was thinking about home, and the dear ones 
there from whom she had never been separated 
so long before. 


GETTING SETTLED. 


149 


Ruby was really a brave little girl, and when 
she felt the lump swelling in her throat again 
she kept swallowing it back, and trying to think 
only of how pleased her papa would be when he 
should hear that she had been good and had not 
cried to come home ; but when at last she knelt 
down to say her prayers in her little white night 
gown, the tears would come. 

“I want mamma, oh, I want mamma,” she 
sobbed. 

Aunt Emma took her up tenderly in her arms, 
and kissed and comforted the little girl as ten- 
derly as she could ; but no one could take the 
place of mother, and though Ruby tried to stop 
crying, the tears came fast and thick. 

“ You may tliink I am not trying to be brave, 
Aunt Emma,” said Ruby, through her sobs ; 
“ but I am trying, I ti’uly am, but it does just 
seem as if I should die if I could n’t see my 
mamma. Oh, if I was only home again. Can’t 
I possibly go home to-morrow. Aunt Emma? 
Do say yes, or I can’t live all night.” 

There, dear, don’t cry so hard,” said Aunt 
Emma, wiping away her tears. “ You will feel 
better to-morrow. Ruby darling. You will be so 
busy getting your lessons that you will not have 
time to think about anything else, and then 
when night comes again, you will remember 


150 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


that you have come away with me so that your 
dear mamma can get well and strong again, and 
the braver you are, the sooner she will improve. 
You had forgotten that, had n’t you, dear ? 
You know you are helping to make her well 
here at school. I know you can’t help crying 
some. I shall not think you are not brave 
because you do, but I know you are going to 
stop very soon and cuddle up and go to sleep, 
and wake up as happy as a little bird.” 

Ruby wiped away her tears after a time, and 
Aunt Emma went to bed with her, that the little . 
girl might feel loving arms about her, and not 
remember how far she was away from home and 
from her mother and father. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


SCHOOL. 

At half-past six the next morning, the rising- 
bell sounded through the house, and Ruby sat 
up in bed and rubbed her eyes, trying to remem- 
ber where she was, and what the bell was. 

It did not take her very long to remember, 
and she jumped out of bed quite happy again, 
and wondering what the first day of school 
would be like. 

By the time she was all dressed, and had put 
on one of her pretty new school dresses, the bell 
rang again, and as Ruby followed Aunt Emma 
out into the hall, she saw that all the other 
doors down the long passage-way were opening, 
and the girls were coming out, some of them 
fastening their collars, as if they had not had 
quite time enough to dress. 

They went down to the dining-room and sat 
in their chairs around the sides of the room 
while Miss Chapman read morning prayers. 
Miss Chapman was seated in her large chair at 


152 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


the end of the room when the girls entered, 
looking, as Ruby thought to herself, like a 
queen upon her throne. As they came in one 
after another, each one said, “ Good morning, 
Miss Chapman,” and she answered them. 

Some of the girls, those who had been there 
the year before, made a little courtesy as they 
entered, but the new scholars were too shy to 
even try to do this, and they only said ‘‘ Good 
morning,” and some of them were so shy that 
their lips only moved, and not even the girl 
next to them could hear what they were trying 
to say. 

After prayers came breakfast, and then the 
girls went upstairs to make their beds and put 
their rooms in order. There were sixteen girls 
altogether, and two teachers besides Miss Chap- 
man and Miss Emma, as the girls called her. 
There was Miss Ketchum, and Mrs. Boardman, 
who was really the matron, though the girls 
always thought of her as a teacher, and she 
sometimes taught a class if any of the other 
teachers were ill or away. 

Mrs. Boardman went around to the rooms 
and told the girls how the rooms were to be 
kept, and she was such a motherly, warm- 
hearted body that very often if she found a 
homesick girl in her room she would know 


SCHOOL. 153 

just how to cheer and comfort her, and help her 
to dry her tears. 

Poor little Maude was really very unhappy. 
Her room-mate had not come yet, so she was all 
alone in her room, and when Mrs. Board man 
went in she found her packing her trunk again, 
with her tears falling fast and thick upon her 
dresses. For once she did not care whether 
they were spoiled or not. All she thought of 
was to go home again as fast as she could, and 
it had not entered her head that she might not 
be permitted if she really made up her mind 
to go. 

Before Mrs. Birkenbaum had gone, she had 
told Miss Chapman that Maude would probably 
want to come home, and that they would have 
hard work keeping her, as she was used to hav- 
ing her own way, so Mrs. Boardman was not 
very much surprised when she saw what Maude 
was doing. 

Maude did not look up when the teacher 
entered the room. She was very homesick, 
poor child, and then besides her desire to see 
her father and mother, she was very much 
aggrieved because no one had paid any special 
attention to her. She had been used to having 
people make a great deal of her because her 
clothes were so fine, and here no one had seemed 


154 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


to notice nor care whether she was better dressed 
than tlie others or not. 

This was a new experience to the little girl, 
and she did not like it. Even Ruby had been 
more noticed than she had been, and she had 
always looked down upon Ruby because she 
lived in the country, and did not have fashion- 
able clothes. It was quite too hard to bear, and 
Maude determined to go home. 

“Wait a minute, my dear,” said Mrs. Board- 
man, pleasantly. “ That is n’t what you ought 
to be doing just now. This is the time to make 
beds, and as your room-mate has not come, I 
will help you this morning, so you will not have 
to make it all alone ; but perhaps you know how 
to make a bed, so that you would just as soon 
make it by yourself.” 

Maude lifted her face, her eye flashing through 
her tears. 

“ I don’t know how to make a bed,” she 
answered. “ I never made a bed. My mamma 
has a servant make them at home, and she never 
had me do such a thing. I don’t want to know 
how to make it, nor to do anything else. I want 
to go home. I am packing my trunk.” 

“ But you can’t go home, you know, my dear,” 
said Mrs. Boardman, pleasantly. “ I know just 
how you feel. When I was a little girl about 


SCHOOL. 


155 


your age I went away from home for a few 
weeks, and I am afraid I was n’t very brave 
about it.” 

‘‘ Did you go to school ?” asked Maude. 

“ No, but I will tell you where I went while 
we are making the bed. Now you take that 
side of the sheet, that is the way, and draw it 
up so, and tuck it in snugly, so your toes won’t 
peep out in the night. Well, I was going to 
tell you how I happened to go away from home. 
One day when I came home from school, my 
father met me down by the gate and he told 
me that my little brother had the scarlet fever 
and the doctor thought that perhaps I might 
not have it, too, if they sent me right away, so 
I was to go to board with an old lady about 
ten miles away who was willing to take care 
of me. He had the carriage all ready, — now 
the blanket, dear ; that ’s right, — and a bundle 
with the dresses in that I should want for a few 
weeks, and before I knew it I was on my way. 
I could n’t even say good-by to my mother, for 
she was with my brother.” 

“ And were you homesick ? ” asked Maude. 

“Yes, indeed,” answered Mrs. Boardman. “I 
cried and cried the first night, and I thought 
I would surely walk home the very first thing 
in the morning. I did not care whether I had 


156 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


the scarlet fever or not, if I might only go home ; 
blit when morning came I remembered what my 
father had said, when he bade me good-by, and 
so I changed my mind, and stayed.” 

“ What had he said ? ” asked Maude, helping 
to turn the top of the sheet over, and quite for- 
getting, in her interest in the story, that she had 
not intended to make the bed. 

“He had said when he kissed me good-by, 
‘ Now I know that you will be very homesick, 
Eliza, and will want to come home a good many 
times, but I know that you are mother’s brave, 
helpful little maid, and that I can trust you to 
stay here until brother gets well so that she 
will not worry about you.’ Of course I was not 
going to disappoint my father when he trusted 
me ; so though I was homesick enough and very 
unhappy, I stayed there for several weeks until 
the doctor said it was safe for me to go home 
again. But you see I remember just how it 
feels to be homesick, and feel as if one could n’t 
stay away one single day more from home. It 
takes a brave girl to make up her mind that she 
will not give up to homesickness, but will do 
what she knows is going to please those whom 
she loves. Yes, I know that sounds as if I 
meant that I was brave, when I was a little 
girl, but then I really think I was, don’t you ? ” 


SCHOOL. 


157 


“ Yes,” admitted Maude. “ I think I should 
liave gone home if I had been in your place, and 
had only ten miles to walk. Did you have a 
nice time staying with the old lady?” 

‘‘ No, it was not very pleasant,” said Mrs. 
Boardman. “ Now pat the pillow, this way, 
Maude, before you put it in its place, so. I 
did not have any lessons nor any books to 
read, and I had no time to bring my patch- 
work or knitting, and so the time hung very 
heavy on my hands. I helped about the work 
when there was anything that a little girl could 
do. I fed the hens, and looked for eggs, and 
wiped dishes, and sewed carpet rags, and some- 
times I went with the hired man to bring the 
cows home. There, the bed looks very nicely 
now, doesn’t it? I think you will be able to 
make it look as well as that every day, don’t 
you ? And then when you go home again even 
if the servant does make it, you will not have 
to thinks that she knows how to do something 
which you do not know how to do. It is very 
nice to know how to do every useful thing, even 
if it may not be necessary to practise it. Sup- 
pose your mamma did not know how to make a 
bed, and she should have a servant who could 
not, how do you suppose she would show her 
without knowing herself ? Now shall we hang 


158 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


up these dresses ? It is almost time for the bell 
to ring, so I think you can put these away just 
as nicely as you could if I stayed and helped 
you, and then I can go and look after some of 
the other girls. Now I am going to say to you 
what my father said to me, ‘You are a brave 
little maid,’ and I know you are to be trusted 
to do what is right. I know you are going to 
forget all about how much you want to go home, 
and you are going to do the very best you know 
how to-day, so that your papa and mamma will 
be pleased with you ; ” and Mrs. Boardman hur- 
ried away, giving Maude a motherly little 
squeeze as she passed her. 

Maude stood looking at her trunk for a few 
moments after Mrs. Boardman had gone away, 
rather undecided what to do with her dresses. 
Fifteen minutes before she had quite made up 
her mind that she was going home and that 
nobody in all the world should make her stay 
at boarding-school now that she had made up 
her mind that she did not like it, but Mrs. 
Boardman had taken it for granted that she 
was a good, brave little girl who wanted to do 
just what was right, and somehow Maude did 
not want to disappoint her. 

Usually Maude’s one aim in life was to do just 
what she chose, and to have her own way in 


SCHOOL. 


159 


everything, and she hardly knew what to make 
of this new sensation of wishing to do right, 
whether it was pleasant or not. 

The sullen look came back on her face, and her 
eyes filled with tears as she thought that she 
could never, never like boarding-school, and she 
started to put the dress she held in her hand 
back into the trunk again ; but then Mrs. Board- 
man’s words, “ You are a brave little maid, and 
I know you are to be trusted to do what is right,” 
brought a happier expression, and a determina- 
tion to deserve those words. She resolutely put 
the dress on its hook, and took the others out of 
the trunk, shaking out the folds, and putting them 
away as nicely as she knew how. Mrs. Board- 
man should see how nicely she could take care 
of lier things. 

Just then she heard Ruby’s voice at the door. 

‘‘ Come in,” she called, and Ruby came rushing 
in, her face bright with smiles. 

“ Oh, Maude, aren’t you ready to come down ? 
It is just lovely out-of-doors, and the bell will 
ring in a moment for us to go into school. I 
want to show you something that I discovered.” 

But Ruby did not have time to show Maude 
any of the charming nooks she had found down 
among the trees at the end of the garden, for 
just then the bell rang long and loud, and the 


160 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 

( 

first school-day had really begun. New girls 
and old girls alike hurried down through the 
halls to the school-room, the old scholars with 
their arms full of books, and the new ones empty- 
handed, except for pencil-boxes, or some little 
conveniences for their desks. 


CHAPTER XV. 


BEGINNING SCHOOL. 

The school-room was very cheerful and pleas- 
ant. There were windows on both sides of the 
room, and all the space between the windows 
was covered with blackboards or maps. 

Ruby began to feel really happy when she sat 
down on a bench with the new scholars, waiting 
to be examined by Miss Chapman and assigned 
to a class. She loved study, and was always 
happy during school-hours, and generally very 
good, too, for she was too busy to get into mis- 
chief, and too anxious to have a good report to 
wilfully break any rules. “ I wonder if you are 
as far advanced as I am,” whispered Maude, as 
she sat down beside Ruby. 

It was on the tip of Ruby’s tongue to tell her 
that she had been at the head of her class for a 
long time at home, but she remembered in time 
to check herself that it was not at all probable 
that whispering was allowed here more than in 
any other school, and that she might break a rule 
the very first thing if she should answer.* 

11 


162 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


One by one Miss Chapman called the girls up 
to the desk where she sat, and questioned them 
about their studies and the books they had used, 
and Miss Ketchum, at her side, wrote down the 
answers in a little book. Then the girls were 
assigned a seat, and Miss Ketchum took their 
books to them, and showed them what the lesson 
would be. 

Ruby was very much pleased when she found 
that she was to be in the class with girls who 
were, most of them, larger than herself, and as 
she was not at all shy, she could answer all the 
questions Miss Chapman asked her, very fluently, 
so that the teacher had a very good idea of what 
the little girl really knew. 

Some of the new scholars were so shy that 
they could scarcely answer, and Miss Chapman 
knew that it would take two or three days to find 
out how far- advanced they were. 

Very much to Maude’s surprise, she was put 
in a class below Ruby. She was not at all pleased 
with this, for it was a great mortification to her 
pride to find that the little country girl whom 
she had looked down upon was beyond her in 
her studies. 

. Maude had never attended school regularly, 
but had stayed at home whenever she could beg 
consent from her mother, and very often she had 


BEGINNING SCHOOL. 


163 


won it by teasing when there was really no rea- 
son at all why she should not have been at her 
desk. Even when she had attended school it 
had never occurred to her that it was for her 
own benefit that her teachers tried to have her 
learn her lessons. She had shirked them as 
much as possible, and as no teacher has time to 
waste over a little girl who will not study when 
there are so many willing to learn, she had man- 
aged to get along with very little study, and so, 
of course, had learned but little. 

She was ashamed to see what small girls were 
in the class with her, and she made up her mind 
that she would study so hard that she would 
soon be promoted into the class in which Ruby 
had been put. 

It took until recess time to arrange all the 
classes, and then the bell rang, and the scholars 
were free to go out upon the lawn for a half- 
hour. A basket of rosy-cheeked apples was 
passed about, and all the children were very 
ready for one. Some day-scholars attended this 
school, and Ruby thought, rather wistfully, how 
nice it would be if she, too, were going home 
when school should be out. 

Maude did not care about being with Ruby 
during recess time, for she was afraid that Ruby 
would remember her speech early that morning. 


164 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


and remind her that she instead of Maude was 
the farthest advanced in her studies. Ruby was 
becoming acquainted with some of her new class- 
mates, and was finding this first morning of 
school life very pleasant. 

The rest of the morning seemed longer than 
the first part had done, and Ruby as well as 
most of the others were very glad when the 
noon intermission came. The day-scholars took 
out their lunch-baskets, and prepared to eat their 
lunches, and the bell rang for the boarding- 
scholars to go up to their rooms and get ready 
for dinner. 

As each little girl reached the door, she 
stopped, turned around and made a courtesy to 
Miss Chapman who was sitting opposite the 
door. Ruby watched the girls as they went out 
one by one. She was quite sure that she could 
never make a courtesy, and as each girl passed 
out, her turn to go came nearer and nearer. 

What should she do? If her Aunt Emma 
had only been there. Ruby might have asked 
her to let her stay in the school-room, for she 
felt as if she would a great deal rather go with- 
out her dinner than try to make a courtesy when 
she did n’t know how, with all those girls look- 
ing at her. What if she should tumble down 
in trying to make it? It seemed very likely 


BEGINNING SCHOOL. 


165 


that she would, the very first time she had ever 
tried to do such a thing. The very thought of 
such an accident made Ruby’s face grow redder 
than ever. Only three more girls and then Miss 
Chapman’s eyes would be fixed upon her, and it 
would be time for her to get up and go out. 
Now only two more girls, and then the last one 
had gone, and Ruby knew that she must go. 

She walked over to the door, feeling as shy as 
Ruthy had ever felt, and stood there a moment. 
How could she ever try to courtesy with all 
those girls looking at her? 

She hesitated so long that all the girls looked 
up to see why she did not go out. 

Ruby stood in the door one moment longer, 
and then she turned and ran down the passage- 
way as fast as she could go, feeling as if now 
she must surely go home, for she had disgraced 
herself forever. 

She had come out of the room without cour- 
tesying, or even saying good-morning as all the 
other girls had done, and then her running away 
had of course made all the girls laugh at lier. 

What would Miss Chapman do to her? 
Would she give her bad marks, or put her at 
the foot of her class, or keep her in after school? 
Anything would be bad enough, but the worst of 
all to proud little Ruby was the thought that 


166 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


she had failed in doing something which all the 
other scholars seemed to have done so easily. 

She sobbed aloud as she ran down the passage- 
way with her hands clasped tightly over her face, 
and as she turned the corner to go into the house, 
she ran straight into somebody’s arms. 

She uncovered her face and looked up as a 
familiar voice said, “ Why, Ruby, where are you 
going so fast? I was just coming to look for 
you. But are you crying? Why, what is the 
matter ? ” 

But Ruby was crying so hard that Aunt 
Emma could not understand what she said. 
She could only make out that it was something 
about courtesying, so she led Ruby up to her 
room, and quieted her down a little, and would 
not let her talk about her trouble until her hair 
was brushed and her face washed. 

“ I might have taught you how to courtesy 
before school-time this morning if I had only 
thought of it in time,” Aunt Emma said. “ But 
now you must n’t cry about it any more. Ruby. 
Of course it would have been better if you had 
tried to do as the other girls did, but now all 
you can do is to tell Miss Chapman that you are 
sorry and that you will not do so any more, and 
you must not fret any more about it. I will 
show you now, and then you will courtesy as 


BEGINNING SCHOOL. 167 

nicely as any one else, before you have to do it 
again. 

“But, Aunt Emma, what made the girls do 
it ? ” asked Ruby. “ If the first girl had not 
done it none of the others would have had to, 
would they? And I don’t think it is one bit 
nice, and I don’t see what they want to do it 
for. And oh. Aunt Emma, you ought to have 
seen how beautifully Maude courtesied. She 
did it the very best of all the girls, and I don’t 
see how she knew about it, for I am sure she 
never did it before.” 

“ I will tell you why the girls do it,” Aunt 
Emma answered. “ It is one of the rules of the 
school that when a scholar goes out of a room 
where there is a teacher, she must courtesy to 
the teacher as she leaves the room. That is 
intended as a mark of respect. Yesterday 
school had not begun, and so no attention was 
paid to it, but to-day everything is going on as 
usual as nearly as possible. It happened to be 
one of the old scholars who went out of the 
room first to-day, and so she knew about it. If 
it had been a new scholar Miss Chapman would 
have spoken to her about it. But remember. 
Ruby, even in the afternoon, if you are in the 
sitting-room with a teacher, to courtesy when 
you leave the room. It will not be at all hard 


168 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


after I show you how, and I would not like you 
to forget it.” 

“ Oh, dear,” groaned Ruby. “ I never heard 
of anything so funny. Must I go and courtesy 
to you every time I go out of tliis room. Aunt 
Emma ? Why, it will take all my time cour- 
tesying.” 

Aunt Emma laughed. 

“ Well, I think you may be excused from that 
when we are alone in the room together,” she 
answered. “ If I am in charge of the girls 
downstairs or in the school-room, then you must 
of course do just as you would if any other 
teacher was there, but up here I will excuse 
you, as I suppose it would seem like a good 
deal to you to remember a courtesy every 
time you went in or out of the room. Now I 
will show you. Look here ; ” and Aunt Emma 
courtesied. 

Ruby was very much pleased to find that it 
was very easy to draw one foot behind the other 
and make a courtesy, and she was quite proud 
of her new accomplishment when she had prac- 
tised it a few times. 

“And now, Ruby dear,” said Aunt Emma, 
looking at her watch, “there is just time before 
dinner for you to go and tell Miss Chapman you 
are sorry that you left the school-room in that 


BEGINNING SCHOOL. 


169 


way. She will not scold you, I am sure, so you 
need not be afraid to go and speak to her. She 
is in her own room at the end of the hall, and 
you had better go at once so as to have time 
before the bell rings.’’ 

‘‘And then I will make a beautiful courtesy 
when I come out of her room, shall I ? ” asked 
Ruby, quite ready to go, since she would have a 
chance to show how nicely she could courtesy 
now. 

Aunt Emma smiled. 

“ Yes,” she answered. 

Tap, tap, tap, went Ruby at Miss Chapman’s 
door, and when she heard the teacher call, 
“ Come in,” she opened the door and walked 
in quite bravely. 

Miss Chapman was sitting in her large chair 
by the window looking over some books. 

She held out her hand to Ruby. 

“ Well, my dear,” she said kindly. 

“ Please ma’am, I came to tell you that I am 
very sorry I ran out of school without cour- 
tesying,” said Ruby, rather shyly, looking at the 
beautiful white hair while she was speaking, 
and wondering if when she herself grew to be 
an old lady she would ever have such beautiful 
fluffy hair, and if she should wear a little white 
cap. 


170 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“ Why did you do so, Ruby ? ” asked Miss 
Chapman. 

Ruby hung her head. 

“I did not know how to courtesy,” she an- 
swered presently. “ And I was afraid I should 
fall down if I tried, it looked so hard, and I was 
afraid the girls would laugh at me if I tried and 
tumbled over; and it was so dreadful to have 
them all looking at me, and then know that I 
could n’t do it, that I just could n’t help run- 
ning. But I know how now. Aunt Emma 
taught me, and I won’t ever forget it now. 
Please excuse me for this morning.” 

“Yes,” Miss Chapman answered. “I can 
quite understand how it happened this morn- 
ing, and I am glad you will never do so again. 
I hope you are going to be a good little girl. 
Ruby, and progress nicely in your studies. You 
have had a good teacher and have been well 
taught, and know how to apply yourself, so I 
shall hope that you will stand well in your 
classes.” 

Ruby hardly knew what to say, so she blushed 
with pleasure, and did not answer. 

“ Now you can go,” said Miss Chapman, and 
so Ruby walked over to the door, opened it, and 
turned around and stood exactly in the middle 
of the doorway. Then drawing back her foot, 


BEGINNING SCHOOL. 


171 


she made a verj^ careful and deep courtes}", and 
gravely closed the door after her and ran back 
to Aunt Emma. 

“ Aunt Emma, there is something I have been 
thinking about, she said after she had told her 
aunt how kindly Miss Chapman had spoken to 
her. “ This morning I almost got real mad at 
Maude, for she asked me in such a superior sort 
of way if I sposed we should be in the same 
class. ‘ Do you spose you are as far advanced 
as I am. Ruby ? ’ she said, just as if she thought 
I was ever so much behind her. I was going to 
tell her I guessed I was just as smart as she 
was, but then I remembered it was school and 
I did n’t, for I knew I must n’t talk, but you 
would ’t believe with what little girls she is. 
I am way ahead of her. Well, I did think I 
would just remind her of what she said, but I 
guess maybe I had n’t better ; for she certainly 
could courtesy when I didn’t know the first thing 
about it, and so that sort of makes us even. 
She did n’t see me run away, but then if she 
heard some one else say something about it, 
she would know, and I should n’t feel very 
nice if she should tell me that anyway she 
knew something that I could n’t do without 
being showed how. Don’t you think I had n’t 
better say anything about being ahead of her?” 


172 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


I am sure you had better not,” said Aunt 
Emma, promptly ; but it is not because of the 
courtesying. Ruby, it is because it is not a kind 
thing to boast, or to remind any one else of their 
failings. You know you would not like it your- 
self, and that ought to be reason enough for 
your never doing it to any one else. What is 
the Golden Rule ? ” 

“ Do unto others as you would they should do 
unto you,” repeated Ruby, promptly. 

“ Yes ; and that means that you should never, 
never do to any one else anything that you would 
not like to have done to yourself,” Aunt Emma 
said. 

Just then the dinner-bell rang. 

“ I know what I will do,” exclaimed Ruby, 
cheerfully. “ I will go to Maude’s room and go 
down to dinner with her, for I just spect she 
feels sort of lonesome. I saw her once at recess, 
and she was all by herself, and had n’t any one 
to play with. I will stay with her till she gets a 
little more acquainted, and that will be paying 
attention to the Golden Rule ; for if I was all by 
myself here, and had n’t got you. Aunt Emma, I 
am sure I would be glad if Maude would stay 
with me ; ” and Ruby ran off to find her little 
friend, feeling as happy as if she had not had 
such a burst of tears but half an hour ago. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


Maude’s troubles. 

Poor little Maude had not been enjoying this 
first day at school. It had begun with tears, 
and she had just been having another burst of 
anger, and had thought that she could not pos- 
sibly stay in such a school another hour. It was 
a new experience to the self-willed child to have 
to give up her own way, and submit to regula-. 
tions that she did not like ; and although she had 
managed the courtesy that had brought Ruby to 
grief, without the least trouble, as she had been 
to dancing-school, and could courtesy in the most 
approved French style, yet she found a great 
grievance waiting for her as soon as she reached 
her room. 

Mrs. Boardman was waiting for her. 

‘‘ Maude, I want to help you arrange your hair 
a little differently,” she said. “ Miss Chapman 
does not like the girls to wear their hair here at 
school as you wear yours, flying all over your 
shoulders. She does not think it neat, nor does 


174 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


slie like little girls to pay so much attention to 
their appearance while they are at school. Of 
course she wants you to be neat, but not dressed 
up as if you were going to a party. She likes 
her scholars to wear their hair braided, and I 
will help you braid yours now, as I suppose 
you cannot do it alone if you are not used 
to it, and you have no room-mate yet to help 
you.” 

Maude looked at Mrs. Boardman in angry 
amazement. 

If there was any one thing of which vain little 
Maude was prouder than another, it was of the 
crinkled, waving hair that fell below her should- 
ers. She rarely forgot it, and was always playing 
with a lock of it, or tipping her head over her 
shoulder, like a little peacock admiring his fine 
tail. 

“ I don’t want to wear it braided,” she ex- 
claimed. “ I like it this way. It would look 
like ugly little pig-tails if it was braided, and I 
won’t have it that way. Oh, I want to go home. 
I don’t like it here one single bit. I am sure my 
mamma would n’t let me have my hair braided, 
like a little charity girl.” 

Mrs. Boardman was very patient with the 
spoiled child. 

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Maude’s troubles. 175 

said. “ I hoped vour mamma had spoken to you 
about it before she went away, for I told her that 
Miss Chapman would want you to wear your hair 
differently. She told me that she wanted you to 
follow all the rules of the school, whatever they 
were ; so I know she wishes you to wear your 
hair as Miss Chapman requires the others to 
wear their hair. Now, let me braid it for you, 
for it is growing near dinner-time.” 

But Maude threw herself down the bed, and 
began to cry. 

‘‘ And now I must tell you about another rule,” 
said Mrs. Boardman. “ I expect it will seem to 
you as if we had a great many rules here ; but 
you will soon get used to them, and then you 
will not find them burdensome. It is against 
the rules to sit upon your bed during the day- 
time. You see it will make the bed look untidy, 
and that is the reason for this rule. Now, we 
will straighten the bed out nicely, and then it 
will be quite tidy again.” 

Maude did not move. 

“ Oh, I must go home,” she sobbed. “ I can’t 
stay here. It is a perfectly dreadful place. I 
have to do everything I don’t like to do and I 
can’t do the least little tiny thing that I like to 
do, and my beautiful hair will look so ugly, and 
I just can’t stand it.” 


176 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


Some of the other teachers might have re- 
proved the little girl for her fretful words, but 
kind-hearted Mrs. Boardman was too sorry for 
her. She could imagine how hard it must seem 
to a child who had never been under any control 
at all, to find herself obliged to obey rules, 
whether she liked them or not. She leaned 
over and stroked the golden hair. 

“ Now, dear, I know what a good little girl 
you are going to be when you think about it. 
I was very proud of you this morning, and 
thought I should like to have you for one of my 
special little friends very much. You see I am 
not exactly one of the teachers, and so I can 
have a pet when I want one. I know you don’t 
like this rule, but then you are going to obey it 
because it is right and it will please your mother 
to know you are being a good girl. Something 
worse than having my hair braided happened to 
me when I was about your age. J ump up and 
let me braid your hair, and I will tell you about 
it. Come, dear. It is ever so much easier to do 
things because one wants to, you know, than 
because one is made to do them, and you will 
have to obey the rules whether you want to or 
not; so if I were in your place I should prefer to 
obey them of my own free will, because I wanted 
to do just what was right, and please my mother. 


Maude’s troubles. 177 

I don’t think you could guess what I had to have 
done to my hair.” 

Maude stood up and helped to pat the bed 
straight and flat again. She knew that, as Mrs. 
JBoardman had said, she would have to obey the 
rules, whether she wanted to or not, and she did 
realize that it would be much more sensible to 
follow them willingly than to be in disgrace and 
be forced into compliance. And there was a 
better feeling than that in her heart, too. 

She felt that she was in a place where no one 
cared for her clothes nor for the little airs she 
liked to put on, whenever she found any one to 
admire her, but where she would be valued just 
for herself, and for her behavior. In that one 
morning she had noticed how little girls who 
had not thought of themselves, but only of 
pleasing othei’s, had found friends at once, while 
no one had seemed to care for her society ; and 
she realized that if she was to have any love she 
must try to deserve it. 

Mrs. Boardman was the one person who 
seemed willing to be her friend, and who tried 
to help her do right, and was patient with her 
ill-temper ; and selfish little Maude was grateful 
for the first time in her life for kindness, and 
she did not want to disappoint any one who 
thought that she meant to be good. 

12 


178 


KDBY AT SCHOOL. 


She would try to be good, at any rate, even if 
it was not very pleasant. 

After the bed was in order again, she stood 
still while Mrs. Boardman brushed her hair out 
and braided it for her. 

I must tell you what happened to my hair,’’ 
she b^gan cheerfully. “ I had had typhoid fever, 
and my hair was all dropping out, so that the 
doctor said it must be shaved off. I did not 
want to have it shaved one bit, for it was quite 
long and had been thick, but of course 1 had to 
do as my mother said, and have it shaved. Oh, 
I felt so badly about it. I cried and cried the 
day it was all shaved off, and when I first looked 
at myself in the glass afterwards, I was almost 
frightened, I looked so dreadfully. Did you ever 
see any one’s head after the hair had been 
shaved off ?” 

“ No, ma’am,” answered Maude. 

“ Well, then, you cannot imagine what it looks 
like. My head looked more like a ball than any- 
thing else, and where the hair had been' it was 
perfectly smooth and bald, and there was only a 
purplish look to show where it had grown. I 
ran away and hid myself in the barn and cried 
harder than ever. But I had something nice 
happen to make up for all this.” 

“ What was it?” asked Maude. 


Maude’s troubles. 


179 


“ When my hair grew again it was curly, and 
curly hair was what I had always wished for, 
and never expected to have ; so you can imagine 
how delighted I was. There, see how nicely 
your hair looks now that I }iave braided it. 
Have you a ribbon to tie the ends ? ’’ 

By the time Maude had found a ribbon and 
Mrs. Boardman had tied it at the ends of the 
braids, it was time for her to hurry away and 
look after some of the other girls ; but Maude’s 
face wore a very different expression from the 
tearful, angry one that had been upon it when 
she first heard that her hair must be braided. 
There was a wistful look in her eyes that made 
Mrs. Boardman turn back and give her a kiss. 
“We are going to be good friends, are we not, 
Maude ? ” she said. “ And you are going to be 
so good that I sliall be very proud to say, ‘ Maude 
is one of my special friends.’ ” 

“ Yes, ma’am, I will try to be good,” Maude 
answered. “ Thank you,” she added, with un- 
usual gratitude. 

She was looking quite cheerful when Ruby 
came in. 

“ I was afraid you were lonesome, Maude,” 
she exclaimed, “and I came to go down to din- 
ner with you. When is your room-mate coming, 
do you suppose ?” 


180 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“ I don’t know,” Maude answered. “ Mrs. 
Boardman said she thought she would come to- 
night, or maybe to-morrow morning.” 

“ Are you glad you are going to have some one 
in the room with you ? ” asked Ruby. 

“ I don’t know,” Maude answered. ‘‘ If she is 
nice, I will be glad, and if she is n’t nice, I spose 
I shall be sorry. How did you like school this 
morning? ” 

“Ever so much,” Ruby answered, enthusi- 
astically. “ Did n’t you ? ” 

“ Not very much,” Maude replied. “ I think 
the lessons are awfully hard.” 

Ruby was very much tempted to say something 
that would have sounded rather boastful, but she 
checked herself. 

It had been on the tip of her tongue to ex- 
claim, — 

“ Why, if you think your lessons are hard, in 
a class like yours, what do you suppose mine 
must be, when I am in with such big girls ; ” but 
she only said, — 

“ I spose tlie first day everything seems harder ; 
but wlien we get used to the teachers and the 
lessons, they won’t seem so hard.” 

The dinner-bell rang, and Ruby exclaimed, — 

“ Oh, I am so hungry. It just seems as 
if I had not had anything to eat for a year. 


Maude’s troubles. 181 

Let’s hurry and go down before the rest, 
Maude.” 

But everybody else was hungry, too, so Ruby 
and Maude were by no means the first of the 
stream of girls that hurried into the dining- 
room. 


CHAPTER XYII. 


LEARNING. 

I SUPPOSE you can hardly fancy a school where 
little girls were not allowed to wear their hair 
as they liked ; where they had to courtesy to 
teachers when they left the room; and, what was 
still more surprising, had to eat whatever was 
given to them at the table. I think that such a 
school would seem so very old-fashioned nowa- 
days that no little girls could be found who would 
be willing to go to it, and even in those days 
there were very few like it. 

The dear old Quaker lady. Miss Chapman, 
taught the little girls to do just as she herself 
had been taught to do when she were a little girl ; 
so you can easily imagine that her ways was not 
quite the ways of other teachers. And yet, since 
her scholars were as healthy, happy, rosy-cheeked 
little girls as you could find anywhere, I do not 
know that any one could complain that her ways 
were not very good ways. They seemed very 
strange to new scholars sometimes, if they had 
attended other schools where the rules were not 


LEARNING. 


183 


so strict ; but they very soon grew used to them, 
and then they did not mind them at all, and 
were very happy. 

If Maude had not been sitting by her friend, 
Mrs. Boardmaii, perhaps she would have made a 
great fuss at dinner-time about eating the piece 
of sweet potato which had been served to her. 

She did not like sweet potato, and she liked 
the idea of having to eat it, whether she wanted 
it or not, still less, and the clouds began to gather 
on her face. She glanced about the table, and 
saw that Ruby was having a hard time, trying to 
eat a dish which she did not like, and that some 
of the other girls did not look very happy when 
they heard the rule. 

Mrs. Boardman whispered a few encouraging 
words to Maude, and the little girl reflected that 
as long as she had really tried to be good about 
some other things, she might as well try to be 
good about this rule, too, and so she managed to 
eat the small piece of potato without saying any- 
thing about not liking it. After the girls had 
eaten the portion which was put upon their 
plates the first time, they were at liberty to de- 
cline any more for that meal ; so you may be 
sure that Maude did not take any more. 

“ Don’t let me forget to tell you about a boy I 
heard about who had to eat something he did n’t 


184 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


like, and came very near having to make his 
whole dinner upon it,” whispered Mrs. Board- 
man. “ I don’t think you can imagine how it 
happened, and you can think about it while you 
are eating your potato. Sec, it is only a little 
piece, and it will soon be gone. If I were in 
your place, I would eat it all up first, and then 
you will enjoy the rest of your dinner more when 
you do not have it to think about.” 

Ruby did not so very much mind anything 
that she had to eat at dinner ; but two mornings 
in the week, Tuesday and Friday, there was 
always egg-plant for breakfast, and for some 
weeks Ruby would think about it all the day be- 
fore, and talk about it the day after, until Aunt 
Emma told her that she might as well eat egg- 
plant for every meal every day, she thought and 
talked so much about it. 

‘‘ But I do hate it so,” Ruby would say. “ I 
don’t see the use in having to eat what one 
does n’t like. I just can’t bear it. Aunt Emma.” 

“ But you will learn to like it after a while,” 
Aunt Emma said. “ Miss Chapman thinks that 
little girls ought to learn to like everything that 
is put before them, and she tries to have a pleas- 
ant variety, and not have anything that the girls 
will dislike. You will see how much easier it 
will be to eat your piece of egg plant in two or 
three weeks.” 


LEARNING. 


185 


“ And it just seems as if I always did get the 
very largest piece of all,” Ruby said in despair. 
“ This morning you had a little teenty piece and 
mine was twice as large.” 

“ That was so you would have twice as much 
practice in learning to like it, I suppose,” Aunt 
Emma said with a smile. 

After dinner was over there was a half-hour 
for play and then the school-bell rang, and the 
girls went back into the school-room. Some of 
them took music lessons, and they went one at 
a time to take a lesson in the parlor from Miss 
Emma. 

Ruby was to take music lessons, to her great 
delight. She had been sure that it would be 
very easy, and she was quite disappointed wlien 
she found how much she would have to learn 
before she could play as her aunt did. 

When school was over for the afternoon, at 
four o’clock. Ruby breathed a long sigh of relief. 
The day had seemed a very long one to her, 
though it had been very pleasant, and it seemed 
as if it could not be possible that only yester- 
day at this time she had been on her way to 
school. 

“ What do we do next ? ” asked Ruby of one 
of her schoolmates, as they went into the house 
together. 


186 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


“We all go out together for a walk,” an- 
swered the little girl. “ Will you walk with me 
to-day ? I will come to your room as soon as I 
am ready.” 

“All right,” Ruby answered, and she ran 
upstairs to her own room, to put on her hat 
and jacket. 

Every pleasant day the girls were taken out 
for a walk, and the teachers took turns in 
going with them. To-day Mrs. Boardman was 
going to take them, and Maude was very glad, 
because she had obtained permission to walk 
with her. All the girls were very fond of Mrs. 
Boardman, and they would obtain her promise 
to walk with them so many days ahead that she 
could hardly remember all the promises she had 
made. 

When they were all ready they started out. 
Ruby and Agnes Van Kirk at the head of the 
little procession and Maude and Mrs. Boardman 
at the end. 

Ruby felt very important as she looked up at 
the window and waved good-by to her aunt. It 
was great fun going out to walk this way, with 
a whole string of girls behind her, instead of 
going down the road with a hop and a skip and 
a jump to Ruthy’s house. If Ruthy could only 
be here, and if at night she could kiss her 


LEARNING. 


187 


mother and father good-night, Ruby was quite 
sure that she would think boarding-school quite 
the nicest place in the world. 

They had a very pleasant walk. They went 
down the winding road, bordered upon either 
side with wide-reaching elm-trees, and then 
turned down towards the river. After they 
reached the path that wound beside the water 
Mrs. Boardman let the girls break their ranks, 
and run about and gather some of the wild 
flowers and feathery grasses that grew there 
in such profusion. 

Ruby gathered a beautiful bunch of plumy 
golden-rod for her Aunt Emma, and when she 
went to look for Agnes, she displayed it 
triumphantly. 

“ Just see what a beautiful bunch of golden- 
rod I have,” she exclaimed in delight. “Won’t 
Aunt Emma be pleased ? But have n’t you got 
any flowers, Agnes ? Why, what have you been 
doing ? I thought you were looking for flowers 
too.” 

Agnes opened a paper bag, which she had 
loosely twisted together at the top, and which 
seemed to be empty, and said, — 

“ No, I did not get any flowers, but just see 
what a beautiful caterpillar I have. Is n’t that 
lovely ? ” 


188 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


Ruby peeped into the bag, and saw a large 
mottled caterpillar walking about upon a leaf, 
apparently wondering where he was, and doubt- 
less thinking that the sun had gone under a 
cloud, since he could not see it anywhere. 

“ Is n’t he a beauty ? ” repeated Agnes, in 
delighted tones, taking another look at her 
prisoner herself, and then twisting the bag 
together again. 

Ruby hesitated. She did not like to say that 
she thought it was the very ugliest caterpillar 
she had ever seen, and that if Agnes really 
wanted a caterpillar she would have thought 
that one of the fat brown ones that she could 
find anywhere around the school would have 
been nicer, and yet Agnes seemed to admire it 
so much she really felt as if she ought to say 
something. 

“ Well,’’ she said at last, as she found that 
Agnes was waiting for her, “ I think it is 
certainly one of the biggest caterpillars I ever 
saw. What are you going to do with it? I 
don’t see what you like caterpillars for.” 

“ Oh, it is n’t for myself,” Agnes answered. 
“ It is for Miss Ketchum. She is very fond of 
studying about bugs and caterpillars and every- 
thing of that kind, and nothing makes her quite as 
happy as to have a nice new caterpillar to watch.” 


LEARNING. 


189 


“ What does she do with them ? ” asked Ruby. 

“ She puts them in little boxes with thin 
muslin over the top, or mosquito netting, so 
that she can look through and watch them, and 
she feeds them every day with leaves or some- 
thing else that they like, and then after a while 
they spin themselves all up into cocoons, and go 
to sleep, and then by and by a beautiful butter- 
fly comes out. Oh, Miss Ketchum just loves 
caterpillars.’’ 

‘‘ I wish I had a caterpillar for her,” said 
Ruby. “Well, I will get one for her the very 
next time I sec one, as long as she likes them so 
much. I never heard of any one liking cater- 
pillars before, though, did you ?” 

“No, I don’t know as I did,” said Agnes. 
“ But I think I shall like them very much too 
before long, for I like to watch the butterflies 
come out, and I like to keep looking out for new 
caterpillars. I don’t think I would like to 
bother taking care of them as Miss Ketchum 
does, but perhaps I won’t mind that after a 
while. She has such a nice book about them.” 

Miss Ketchum was very much pleased with 
the new specimen when Agnes gave it to her, 
after the girls got home from their walk, and 
Ruby looked with great interest at the little 
boxes in which captive caterpillars were walking 


190 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


about, apparently feeling at home and very 
happy as they nibbled at their nice fresh leaves, 
or sunned themselves upon the netting. 

“Isn’t Miss Ketchum nice?” said Agnes, as 
the girls went up to their own rooms. “ Some 
of the girls don’t like her as well as they do the 
other teachers, but I do. She is always so kind 
about helping one with lessons, and she never 
gets cross unless she has one of her bad head- 
aches, and then I should think she would be 
cross, for the girls tease her. She was so kind 
to me when I first came that I just love to get 
her caterpillars or do anything else I can for 
her.” 

“ She was so glad to get that new one, was n’t 
she ? ” said Ruby. “ I will help you get some 
for her, Agnes, the very next time we go out 
walking. We will walk together, and then we 
can both watch for them.” 

“ That will be ever so nice,” said Agnes. “ You 
see most of the girls make fun of Miss Ketchum 
because she wears those little curls on her fore- 
head, and is absent-minded sometimes, and likes 
caterpillars so much, and it will please her ever 
so much if you like her, and help her instead of 
laughing at her.” 

It had not occurred to Ruby before that she 
could please any of the teacliers by showing 


LEARNING. 


191 


them little kindnesses and being thoughtful of 
them, and she remembered remorsefully how she 
had laughed during recess when one of the girls 
had drawn on her slate a funny caricature of 
Miss Ketchum, with the two little curls that she 
wore on each side of her forehead standing up 
like ears, and her glasses on crookedly. She 
made up her mind that she would never laugh 
at her teacher again, but try to help her in every 
way she could by being good herself and setting 
others a good example. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


MISADVENTURES. 

By the time Ruby had been at school a week 
she was quite happy, and had been so good that 
Aunt Emma wrote home to her father and 
mother that no one could ask for a better little 
girl, or one who made more progress in her 
studies. 

In fact. Ruby had begun to be quite proud of 
herself for being so good, and quite enjoyed com- 
paring herself with some of the other girls, who 
could not learn their lessons as quickly as she 
did, and who did not try so hard to be good and 
not give the teacher any trouble. 

If Ruby’s mother had been with her she would 
have warned the little girl that this was the very 
time for her to be most watchful lest she should 
do wrong, for it was generally when Ruby had 
the highest opinion of herself that her pride had 
a fall. 

If any one had told Ruby upon this particular 
morning that she should laugh out loud in school. 


MISADVENTURES. 


193 


and more than that, laugh at Miss Ketchum, she 
would not have believed it, and yet that is just 
exactly what she did. Still, I think you will 
hardly blame Ruby when I tell you how it 
happened. 

It was quite true that, as Agnes had said. Miss 
Ketchum was apt to be absent-minded some- 
times. She was so interested in her studies 
that she sometimes forgot about other things, 
and while she never forgot anything connected 
with her scholars’ lessons, yet she sometimes 
forgot little matters about her dress. 

She wore her hair in a rather unusual way, 
and when it was brushed back and arranged 
she would pin a little round curl upon either side 
of her face. This morning she had somehow 
forgotten to pin one of these curls on, and as 
soon as the girls noticed it, they were very much 
amused. 

If Miss Chapman had noticed it when she 
opened the school she would probably have re- 
minded Miss Ketchum of it, but she did not see 
it, and none of the girls told her ; so the curl was 
still missing when Ruby went up with the rest 
of the class to the desk, to recite her grammar 
lesson. 

She was not quite sure that she knew it, and she 
had been studying so hard up to the last minute 

13 


194 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


that she had not noticed how the other girls had 
been laughing behind their books and desk- 
covers, and had not even looked at Miss Ketchum 
since school began. 

Ruby was at the head of the class, and so the 
first question came to her, — 

“ What is an adverb ? ” 

Ruby looked up at her teacher, and was just 
about to answer, when her eyes rested upon the 
place where the curl ought to have been. Miss 
Ketchum’s hair was very thin just there, and the 
contrast between the round curl on one side of 
her head and the empty place upon the other 
was so funny that before Ruby thought of what 
she was doing she had laughed aloud. 

Miss Ketchum had not the least idea that there 
was anything in her appearance which could be 
amusing, and as she had often been tried by 
mischievous scholars giggling or whispering, she 
thought that Ruby was deliberately intending to 
be rude, and very naturally she was much pro- 
voked at her. One could hardly have expected 
her to think anything else, for it was not very 
pleasant to have one of her scholars look straight 
at her and then burst out laughing. 

Poor Miss Ketchum’s face grew as red as 
Ruby’s own, and she said very sternly, — 

“ I am surprised at you. Ruby. I did not 


MISADVENTURES. 


195 


know that you could behave so badly. You may 
carry your grammar over there in the corner, 
and sit there facing the school the rest of the 
day. Next, what is an adverb ? 

Poor Ruby was too miserable to try to explain, 
and she didn’t like to tell Miss Ketchum that 
she had left her curl off ; so she took her book 
and went over in the corner, feeling completely 
in disgrace. 

After a while the door opened, and Aunt 
Emma looked in, to call one of her pupils for 
her music lesson, and the look of grave surprise 
upon her face when she saw Ruby sitting there 
by herself made the little girl more miserable 
than ever. She had not meant to laugh. If she 
liad noticed the missing curl before she came to 
the class she never would have laughed ; but 
seeing it suddenly drove the adverb quite out of 
her head, and before she had known what she 
was about she had laughed. 

It seemed a long time to recess, and it was all 
that Ruby could do to keep the tears out of her 
eyes. It was the first time in her life that she 
had ever been in disgrace at school, and she felt 
it keenly. It would have been bad enough if it 
had happened in school at home, but to have it 
happen here was doubly hard. 

Ruby was sure she could never be happy here 


196 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


again, never, after having to stay up there all the 
morning in disgrace before the whole school. 

At last the recess-bell rang, and the other 
scholars went out to play, and Ruby and Miss 
Ketchum were left alone. 

“ I shall hear your grammar lesson in a few 
moments. Ruby,” said Miss Ketchum, in a stern 
tone, and she went to her room, leaving Ruby 
with her grammar in her hand, trying to keep 
the tears out of her eyes long enough to study. 

She did not know nor care just now what an 
adverb was, and it is very hard to study with a 
great lump in one’s throat, and tears in one’s 
eyes. If she had really meant to be mischie- 
vous it would not have been so hard to be in 
disgrace, but Ruby really had not intended to do 
wrong, and she would not have done anything to 
make Miss Ketchum feel badly for anything in 
the world if she had had time to think. Agnes 
had cast a pitying glance at her as she went out, 
for she had understood how it was, and she 
lioped that during recess time, when Ruby and her 
teacher should be alone together. Ruby would tell 
Miss Ketchum why she had laughed. 

After Ruby's punishment none of the other 
girls had shown that they noticed the missing 
curl, lest they should be sent up to the platform 
too, for speaking about it, so Miss Ketcliuin did 


MISADVENTURES. 


197 


not discover her loss until she went to her room 
at recess. 

The first thing she saw when she entered her 
room was a dark curl lying upon her bureau. 
She looked at it wonderingly for a moment, and 
then put her hand up to her head. One curl was 
in its place, but there was the other lying upon 
the bureau. She had forgotten to put it on. 
Looking at herself in the glass. Miss Ketchum 
smiled, although she was very much mortified to 
think that she had been in school all the morn- 
ing without knowing that she had not finished 
dressing. She understood Ruby’s behavior then. 

Going back to the school-roora she sat down 
at her desk and called Ruby to her. 

“Ruby, dear, you did not intend to be dis- 
orderly this morning in class, did you?” she 
asked. 

Ruby burst into tears, and hid her face. In a 
moment Miss Ketchum’s arm was about her, and 
she was crying on her teacher’s shoulder. 

“ Indeed I did n’t,” she answered, between her 
sobs. “ I never thought of such a thing. I was 
just going to tell you what an adverb was, and 
when I looked up I saw — I saw — ” 

“That my hair was not arranged properly?” 
asked Miss Ketchum. 

“Yes’m,” said Ruby, “and then before I knew 


198 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


what I was going to do I had laughed. I am so 
sorry, and oh, I wish I could go home. I never 
was bad in school before, and I did not mean to 
he this time. Indeed I am so sorry I laughed. 
Miss Ketchum. I could n’t help it and I did n’t 
know I was going to, truly I did n’t.” 

“ Ruby, dear, I feel as if it was more my fault 
than yours,” said Miss Ketchum, gently wiping 
away tlie little girl’s tears. ‘‘ Now you may go 
out to play and I will hear your lesson some 
time after school, when you feel like coming up 
to my room to say it, and you shall have your 
good mark, if you know it, just as if you had 
recited it in class. I shall not consider that 
you have done anything wrong this morning, 
for I can understand that you would not have 
laughed if you had had time to think about it 
for a moment. But you will try after this 
always to be quiet, will you not?” 

“ Yes ’m,” answered Ruby, earnestly, and re- 
turning Miss Ketchum’s kiss, she wiped her 
eyes and ran out to play, happier than she had 
had any idea that she could ever be again. 

She thought to herself that she would never 
smile again in school, even if such a thing should 
happen as that Miss Ketchum should leave both' 
of her curls off at once. When she went out to 
play she found that the girls were disposed to 


MISADVENTURES. 


199 


make much of her for her trouble of the 
morning. 

“ It was too bad for anything, Ruby Harper, 
that you had to get into trouble all on account 
of Miss Ketchum’s curl,” said one of the girls. 
“ I don’t wonder you laughed. If you had seen 
it before you might liave been able to help it, 
but to look up and see her hair looking that way 
was enough to make any one laugh, whether 
they meant to or not. 

“ Miss Ketchum knows now that I did not 
mean to,” Ruby answered. “ I truly could not 
help it, but you see if I am ever in disgrace 
again.” 

“ Never mind, all the girls knew how it was,” 
answered her friend, comfortingly. ‘‘ Come and 
play puss in the corner. I am glad she let you 
out instead of keeping you in all recess.” 

Ruby was quite happy again now, and when 
she had a moment in which to run up and tell 
Aunt Emma that Miss Ketchum said that she 
had not really done anything naughty, she felt 
much better. 

But she was sorry that she had laughed, even 
if she did not intend to, and she wanted to make 
up to Miss Ketchum for her seeming rudeness ; 
so she made up her mind that that very after- 
noon she would gather all the caterpillars she 


200 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


could find anywhere, and give them to Miss 
Ketchum, to show her how sorry she was, and 
how happy she would like to make her. 

That afternoon, as soon as she had finished 
practising, she took an empty cardboard box, 
and went down to the end of the garden. She 
was quite sure that in the vegetable garden she 
would find ever so many caterpillars, and there 
they were, — great brown ones, crawling lazily 
about in the sun, smaller green ones, that trav- 
elled about more actively, and upon the tomato- 
plants Ruby found some that she was quite sure 
Miss Ketchum would like, because they were so 
remarkably large and ugly. 

She was a very happy little girl as she filled 
her box, feeling almost as delighted as if she 
was finding something for herself with every 
caterpillar that she captured and put into her 
box. 

After she had put as many as thirty or forty 
in their prison she found it was quite hard to 
put one in without another coming out, and she 
did not get along quite as fast. Before the bell 
rang for study hour, however, she had captured 
fifty-five, and fifty-five caterpillars looked like a 
great many when Ruby carefully opened one 
side of the box and peeped in. Ruby wrote 
upon the top of the box, in her very best hand. 


MISADVENTURES. 


201 


“For Miss Ketclium, with Ruby’s love,” and 
then she punched little holes in the cover that 
her caterpillars might have some air to breathe. 

She ran upstairs to Miss Ketchum’s room, 
which was over one end of the schoolhouse, and 
knocked at the door, which was partly opened. 
No one answered, and Ruby knocked again. She 
pushed the door open a little farther and looked 
in, and found that Miss Ketchum had gone out. 
She was to have charge of the study hour that 
afternoon, and she had probably gone down- 
stairs. Ruby laid the box on the bureau, and 
ran away as the bell rang to call the scholars 
together, feeling quite delighted at the thought 
of Miss Ketchum’s happiness when she should 
find so large an addition to her “ menagerie,” as 
the girls called it. She thought she would not 
tell Miss Ketchum about it, but let her have the 
pleasure of a surprise when she should go up to 
her room. Of all the little girls, no one studied 
more diligently than Ruby that afternoon, for 
she wanted to make up for the morning in every 
way that she could ; and the thought of the cater- 
pillars walking about in their prison, all ready to 
make Miss Ketchum happy when she should find 
them, made Ruby very glad; so she felt like sing- 
ing a little song as she studied her grammar, and 
looked out the map questions in her geography. 


202 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


The day which had begun so disastrously was 
going to have a very pleasant ending after all, 
and Ruby no longer felt as if she must go home. 
When the girls had come into the school-room 
after recess Miss Ketchum had said what Ruby 
had not in the least expected her to say, that she 
had found out why Ruby laughed, and if she had 
known sooner she would not have sent her out 
of the class for it, as she felt as if it w^as her 
own fault instead of Ruby’s, and that therefore, 
she should give Ruby perfect marks for deport- 
ment, since she had not intended to make any 
disorder during school-time. Ruby was so grate- 
ful to Miss Ketchum for thus clearing her before 
the school that she made up her mind that she 
would never, never give her teacher the least bit 
of trouble, but would always be good, and learn 
her lessons perfectly, so that she should never 
have any occasion to reprove her. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


SURPRISES. 

When Ruby went to bed that night her last 
thought was of the caterpillars and of the pleas- 
ure they would give her teacher, and she was 
impatient for the morning to come that she 
might have Miss Ketchum tell her how much 
she had enjoyed them. 

Miss Ketchum did not go up to her room after 
study hour, but after supper she went up for 
something, intending to return to the sitting- 
room at once, as she had charge of the girls that 
evening. It was almost dark in her room, but 
she did not stop to light the lamp, as she knew 
where to get her work-basket in the dark. In 
passing the bureau she put out her hand and 
knocked something off, but stooping down on 
the floor and picking it up again, she concluded 
that it was merely an empty paper-box, such as 
Mrs. Board man often put in her room when she 
found one, to use as a home for her pets. The 
cover rolled away, but Miss Ketchum did not stop 


204 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


to look for it, and went down to the sitting room 
again. 

Of course you can guess what happened. 
Whether the caterpillars were asleep or not 
when the box fell, I could not tell you, but after 
that they were certainly very wide-awake, for 
they travelled out of the box and all over the 
room. Before Miss Ketchum had come up to 
go to bed they had made their way all over 
the room. There were some of them on the 
ceiling, some crawling over the white counter- 
pane on Miss Ketchum’s bed, some upon her 
pillow, and a very fat, large caterpillar, that 
Ruby had found upon a tomato-plant, had crept 
up on the looking-glass and had gone to sleep 
there. 

Miss Ketchum was very much interested in 
caterpillars, but of course she did not want to 
have them walking all about her room in this 
way ; so you can imagine how surprised and per- 
haps a little frightened she was when she came 
upstairs to bed, and struck a light, and saw the 
caterpillars making themselves quite at home all 
about her room. She could not understand it at 
first, and then it occurred to her that perhaps 
some of the girls had been playing a trick upon 
her, and had put them in the room to annoy her. 
Some of the scholars were unkind enough to 



Miss Ketchum and the Catehpillaks, 



SURPRISES. 


205 


tease Miss Ketchum sometimes, and it would not 
have surprised her if this had been the case 
to-night. 

At last she remembered the box, and picking 
up the cover, she saw written carefully upon it, 
“ With Ruby’s love,” and then she knew how 
it had happened. 

Ruby had put them there to please her, and if 
the cover had stayed on the box, the caterpillars 
would have been quite safe, and would have been 
in their prison yet ; but she remembered having 
knocked the box down, and it was undoubtedly 
then that they strayed out and wandered about 
the room. 

Poor Miss Ketchum ! She sighed as she 
looked about the room. She could not go to bed 
and perhaps have the caterpillars creeping all 
over her in the night, and yet it seemed like a 
hopeless task to catch them, and slie had no 
idea how many there were. 

But Ruby had meant to be so kind that she 
thought more of her little scliolar’s affection for 
her than she did of the work she had so unin- 
tentionally given her. 

One by one she patiently captured them and 
returned them to their box. She was not quite 
sure that she had got them all when she put the 
last one in, but there were so many that she felt 


206 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


tolerably certain that Ruby could not possibly 
have found more in one day. 

It was quite late before she finally got to bed, 
and while Ruby was sound asleep and dreaming 
of Miss Ketchum’s delight when she should find 
the addition to her pets, Miss Ketchum was 
smiling to herself as she thought of Ruby’s 
intended kindness, and how it had turned out. 
She made up her mind that Ruby should not 
know that the caterpillars had escaped, but that 
she should think that her gift had given all the 
pleasure that it was intended to, and so Ruby 
never knew of poor Miss Ketchum’s caterpillar 
hunt at bed-time. 

The next day Miss Ketchum thanked her for 
them, and explained to her that she would have 
to set some of them at liberty again, since she 
had some of a good many of the varieties, and 
two of each were all that she could take care 
of ; but Ruby was delighted to hear that Miss 
Ketchum had never had some of the specimens 
before, and that she was quite sure that they 
would make beautiful butterflies. 

After this Ruby and Miss Ketchum were as 
good friends as Agnes had always been with her 
teacher, and Miss Ketchum found it a great help 
to have two little girls, instead of one, upon 
whom she could always rely for good behavior, 


SURPRISES. 207 

and who could be trusted never to wilfully annoy 
her. 

She had a great many treasures in her room 
that had been brought to her from China by a 
brother who had been a missionary there, and 
she was always glad to have Agnes and Ruby 
come and pay her a little visit, and look at 
whatever they wished. She knew they could 
be trusted to handle things carefully and not be 
meddlesome, and many a happy hour the two 
girls spent there. Miss Ketchum’s room was a 
very large room, as it was the only one over the 
school-house, so she had plenty of space to keep 
all her curiosities and her pets. 

There was a little cupboard that stood in a 
corner, just as if it had been built for that par- 
ticular space, and in this corner closet Miss 
Ketchum kept a little tin of delicious seed-cakes, 
and some cups and saucers, and pretty little 
plates witli butterflies, and mandarins, and 
pagodas, and Chinese beauties upon them ; and 
very often when the girls came to see her she 
would open this cupboard and they would have 
a little treat, which seemed all the more delight- 
ful because the plates were so odd. There was 
an open fireplace in the room, and when the 
days were cold and there was a snapping, blaz- 
ing wood-fire, they used to ask Miss Ketchum if 


208 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


thej^ might not bring their chestnuts and roast 
them in the hot ashes. 

Miss Ketchum knew a great many stories, too, 
and sometimes, on Saturday afternoon, when the 
children had plenty of time, and would surely 
not have to hurry away in the most interesting 
part of the story, she would lean back in her big 
rocking-chair, and with the little girls sitting on 
ottomans, one each side of her, she would tell 
them delightful stories about when she was a 
little girl and went to school. Euby and Agnes 
were glad that they did not live then, when there 
was no whole holiday on Saturday, but they 
were very much interested in hearing all that 
Miss Ketchum had to tell them, and in compar- 
ing the things that she did when she went to 
school with what they did themselves. 

Altogether Miss Ketchum was a very delight- 
ful friend to have, if she was a little forgetful 
sometimes, and did like caterpillars; but Ruby 
and Agnes grew almost as fond of her pets as 
she was herself, as they learned how much there 
was of interest about them. They looked for- 
ward quite eagerly to the time when, instead of 
the ugly worm that had woven a chrysalis about 
himself and gone to sleep for the winter, there 
should burst forth a beautiful butterfly. It 
made them more careful not to hurt creeping 


SURPRISES. 


209 


things, and if they found a brown worm crawl- 
ing about where he might be stepped upon, the 
girls would always pick him up carefully upon a 
stick or leaf and put him in a safe place where 
he might keep out of danger. 


CHAPTER XX. 


PERSIMMONS. 

The September days passed away and the 
October days came and found Ruby both happy 
and good. She had not forgotten lier home nor 
her dear mother and father, but she was learn- 
ing to love her new home very dearly, and she 
had tried so hard to be good and give the 
teachers as little trouble as possible that they 
were all very fond of her. She found her 
lessons very pleasant, and as she loved study 
and was ambitious to always have perfect lessons 
she was very near the head in all her classes. 

Twice a week she wrote long letters home to 
her mother, and told her all about her doings ; 
and her mother was so much better that she 
was able to write to Ruby two or three times a 
week, — such loving letters that Ruby always 
wished for a little while that she could put her- 
self in an envelope and send herself home to her 
mother, instead of waiting for Christmas. Ruby 
was doing so well that both her Aunt Emma 
and her father and mother wanted her to stay 


PERSIMMONS. 


211 


until the end of the term at any rate. Ruby 
hoped that when she went home she would be 
able to take with her at least one of the five prizes 
which were to be given at Christmas. There 
was a composition prize, a deportment prize, a 
prize for grammar, one for spelling, and one for 
improvement in music. Ruby had worked so 
hard in all her classes, and had been so careful 
to keep all the rules, that she was quite sure that 
she should take at least one prize home with her 
to show her father and mother how hard she had 
tried to be good. 

If Ruthy could only have been with her, Ruby 
would have been quite contented ; but with all 
her new friends she still missed the dear little 
friend who had been like a sister to her all her 
life. 

A great many things that had seemed hard to 
Ruby when she first came were becoming so 
natural to her now that she never thought any- 
thing about them. The courtesying was no 
longer any trouble to her; on the contrary, 
she really liked it, and she amused her Aunt 
Emma one day by telling her that she thought 
that when she went home she should always 
courtesy to her father and mother when she 
went out of the room ; for if it was respectful to 
courtesy to her teachers, it was certainly respect- 


212 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


ful to courtesy to any one else of whom she 
thought a great deal. She had learned to like 
egg-plant just as well as she did anything else, 
so her trouble over that had melted away into 
thin air; and she had found Agnes Van Kirk a 
very good friend to have, for she was a little girl 
who tried very hard to do right herself, and 
helped Ruby to do right, too. 

Agnes was going to be a teacher some day, 
she hoped, and she was very fond of talking to 
Ruby about her plans. She was going to have a 
large boarding-school, and she was not quite sure 
whether she would have her girls courtesy or not 
when they went out of a room. 

“ Perhaps it will be old-fashioned by that time, 
you know,” she said to Ruby, when the two girls 
had counted how many years must pass away 
before Agnes should have completed her educa- 
tion and opened her school. “ Of course I should 
not teach my girls to do old-fashioned things, 
that would make people laugh at them, but I 
want them to do everything that is nice. I mean 
to be such a teacher as Miss Chapman. She 
never scolds, but all the girls mind her, and 
even those who break the rules always wish 
they hadn’t when she looks at them. I can 
hardly wait, I am in such a hurry to begin my 
school.” 


PERSIMMONS. 


213 


“ And I will come and see you, and look at the 
girls the way that lady looked at us the other 
day when she came to visit the school,” said 
Ruby. “ Do you remember how beautifully she 
was dressed, Agnes, and how pretty she was ? I 
wonder if she meant to send her little girl here, 
and that was why she came. Won’t it be fun to 
go and visit your school when I don’t have any 
of the lessons to study, nor anything. I will be 
very grand, and they will never guess that 
we used to be little girls and go to school 
together. I don’t want to be a school-teacher, 
though.” 

‘‘ What do you want to be ? ” asked Agnes. 

“ I think I shall write books,” announced 
Ruby. 

‘‘ Why, what ever made you think of that ? ” 
asked Agnes, in astonishment. “ You don’t even 
like to write compositions, and how could you 
ever write books ? ” 

“ Oh, compositions are different from books,” 
returned Ruby, airily. “ I am sure I could write 
poetry, I like it so much. There is n’t anything 
I like better than poetry day. I wish it was 
poetry day every Friday, instead of every other 
one being compositions. I don’t think composi- 
tions are at all interesting. We have to write 
a composition for next time upon one of our 


214 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


walks. I think I will write about our walk this 
afternoon. I don’t think there is ever very much 
to write about the walks we take. We just go 
out two and two, and we see the same things 
every time, and that is all there is of it.” 

“Perhaps something may happen to-day to 
give you something to write about,” Agnes an- 
swered ; and though she liad only spoken in fun, 
without any idea that her words would come 
true, something did happen that afternoon, quite 
out of the usual course, and I am not sure but 
that Ruby would have rather that it had not 
happened, and that she would have had less to 
write about. 

Miss Ketchum announced at the close of the 
afternoon school that the girls would go for 
their walk lialf an hour earlier than usual, as 
they were going to gather persimmons, and would 
want to have more time than for their regular 
walk. 

This gathering of persimmons was a treat 
looked forward to by the girls, and they were 
very much pleased when they heard that they 
were to go this afternoon. They each had a little 
basket in which to bring home their spoils, and 
Ruby was quite as excited as the rest of them, 
wondering whether she would find enough to fill 
her basket. It was the first of November, and 


PERSIMMONS. 


215 


there had been several slight frosts, which, Ruby 
heard the teachers say, ought to ripen the 
persimmons. 

“ That is funny,” she said to herself. ‘‘ I 
should think it would spoil persimmons to be 
frozen. I never heard of anything being better 
because it had been out in the frost. I wonder 
what persimmons are like, anyway.” 

Ruby had never seen any persimmons in her 
life, as they did not grow near her home, and she 
had a vague idea that they were like apples, only 
smaller, perhaps. It did not take the girls very 
long to get ready, and in a little while they 
were all on their way, so happy that it was hard 
work to keep in procession, and not lose step 
with each other. 

It was a beautiful day. The sky was so blue 
that not the tiniest little white cloud was floating 
about upon it anywhere, and the air was not very 
cold. There was just enough frostiness to make 
warm wraps very pleasant, and to make the girls 
find a brisk gait deliglitful. 

The leaves had all dropped from the trees, and 
their bare, brown limbs stood out sharp and clear 
against the sky, and Ruby wondered whether the 
persimmons would not have fallen from the tree, 
too. She did n’t ask any questions, however, but 
made up her mind to wait and see for herself. 


216 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


It was very hard for Ruby to admit that she did 
not know anything ; and although Agnes could 
have told her all about the persimmons, she pre- 
ferred to wait rather than ask her. 

It was quite a long walk to the field where the 
persimmon-tree grew which was considered the 
special property of the school. In the woods 
there were several persimmon-trees, but the 
boys knew where those persimmons grew, and 
gathered them as soon as they ripened, and very 
often before they were ready to eat ; so it was of 
no use going there to look for any. This tree 
stood in a field that belonged to a friend of Miss 
Chapman’s, and he always kept it just for the 
girls, and was willing to send out his man to 
shake the tree and knock the persimmons down 
for them, if Jack Frost had not done it already. 
As soon as they reached the field, and the 
bars were let down, the girls could break 
tlieir ranks and rush for tlie persimmon-tree, 
which grew in the middle of the field. It did 
not look very inviting. Ruby thought, as she ran 
along with the others. All the leaves had dropped 
off except a few which dangled as if the next 
puff of wind would send them down upon the 
ground with the others ; and the persimmons, 
which hung thickly upon the branches, did not 
look at all as Ruby had fancied that they would. 


PERSIMMONS. 


217 


There were several lying upon the ground, 
and Ruby wondered at the girls for picking 
them up so eagerly. They were all shrivelled, 
and the least touch would break their skins. 
Indeed some of them in falling had broken, 
and were lying in bunches, all mashed together. 
Ruby did not want any such looking persimmons 
as those, and she looked carefully about for nice 
round ones, that were firm and hard. 

Come over here, Ruby,’^ called Agnes. “ Here 
are ever so many, and such nice ones. I am 
getting lots.” 

Ruby glanced over and saw that those in 
Agnes’ basket were just the kind that she did 
not want. 

“ I see some here,” she answered, and so she 
picked up the firm, hard fruit as quickly as she 
could. 

Presently she wondered what they tasted like, 
and she put one in her mouth. 

Did you ever have your mouth puckered up 
by a green persimmon ? If you have, then you 
will know just how Ruby’s mouth felt ; and if 
you have not, you must imagine it, for I am 
sure I cannot tell you about it. It was a very 
green persimmon that Ruby had tasted, and she 
had taken such a bite of it before she could stop 
lierself that it seemed to her as though she 


218 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


would never be able to open her mouth again. 
She was quite frightened at the waj her mouth 
felt, and her eyes filled with tears as she went 
over to Agnes. 

“Oh, it has done something to my mouth, 
and puckered it all up,” she said, trying to keep 
from crying. “ I never had such a dreadful 
feeling in my mouth. Do you suppose it will 
ever come out again ? Oh, it is worse than a 
toothache, it truly is.” 

“ You must have eaten one that was not quite 
ripe,” said Agnes. “ Let me see ; oh, that one 
would pucker your mouth dreadfully, for it is n’t 
nearly ready to eat yet. See, it is only these 
soft ones that are ripe, and the hard ones will 
all pucker one’s mouth.” 

“ And I thought that these soft ones were n’t 
good,” said Ruby, in dismay, “ and I have gath- 
ered only these old puckery ones. I could not 
think what you picked up the squashed ones 
for.” 

How many times that afternoon Ruby wished 
she had known more about persimmons, or that 
she had asked some of the other girls something 
about them. 

Her mouth seemed to grow more puckery 
every moment, and she wondered whether it 
would ever be any better. It did not feel as 


t 


s 



“On, IT HAS DONE SOMETHING TO MY MOUTH ! ” 








PERSIMMONS. 


219 


if it would, and she could not be persuaded to 
taste a ripe persimmon, for she had had enough 
of persimmons. She emptied her basket out, 
and did not want to touch another, though the 
girls assured her that the ripe ones were 
delicious. 

She was very glad when at last the girls had 
gathered as many as they wanted, and they 
were ready to go home again. 

She went upstairs to her room, and Aunt 
Emma did what she could to relieve the puck- 
ered little mouth ; but there was but little that 
could be done except to wait patiently for time 
to take the puckers out of it. 

Ruby was quite sure that it would take a 
year, and when she woke up the following morn- 
ing and found that there was nothing to remind 
her of the persimmon, she was delighted as well 
as surprised, but it was a long time before she 
wanted to hear any more about persimmons. 


CHAPTER XXL 


MAUDE. 

Ip Maude’s mother could have looked into the 
school and watched her little daughter for a day, 
I am sure she would have found it hard to be- 
lieve that she was the same child as the selfish, 
self-willed little girl, who had made every one 
else miserable as well as herself if she could 
not have her own way when she was at home. 

School life was very hard for Maude in a 
great many ways, and she had been more home- 
sick than any of the other girls, — not so much 
because she wanted to see her father and mother 
as because she wanted to go where she could 
have lier own way and do as she pleased. 

All her life she had been accustomed to hav- 
ing her own way, and after such training it was 
very hard for her to submit to the same rules to 
which the other girls had to submit, and to obey 
her teachers. It was a new experience to her to 
find that her fine clothes did not win for her any 
esteem, and that unless she showed herself kind 


MAUDE. 


221 


and obliging to her schoolmates, they did not 
care to have anything to do with her. 

It was not altogether Maude’s fault that she 
had been so selfish ; it was partly because she 
had never been taught to be unselfish, and 
she had grown so used to putting herself and 
her own comfort before that of every one else, 
that it seemed the most natural . thing in the 
world to do, and she was surprised when every 
one else did not do so too. Nothing could have 
been better for her than to come to this quiet 
home school, where she could find a friend who 
would take the trouble to help her correct her 
faults as Mrs. Boardman did. 

Maude had never really loved any one before 
in all her life. She had valued others only for 
what they did for her, but now she was learning 
to love from a better reason than that. She 
really tried to please Mrs. Boardman by obeying 
the rules and trying to study her lessons, and 
though it was hard for her to keep up with her 
class, Mrs. Boardman encouraged her because 
she could see that Maude was really doing her 
best. 

If Maude grew discouraged, and began to 
think that it was of no use for her to try to 
learn, that she would never be able to learn her 
lessons and get up to the head of any of her 


222 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


classes, Mrs. Boardman would tell her how 
much she had improved since she first came, 
and encourage her to try again. 

For the first few weeks Maude found herself 
frequently in disgrace. It seemed almost im- 
possible for her to understand that she must 
obey without ai^uing the point, and that she 
must not be quarrelsome nor selfish in her 
intercourse with the other scholars. If Maude 
had been in a large school where* she would not 
have had any one to help her, she might not 
have improved so much ; but in this little 
school, where it was more like a family than 
a boarding-school, she was helped to conquer 
herself just as wisely as she could have been by 
a wise mother. 

When at last she really learned that no one 
cared for her father’s money nor her mother’s 
servants, nor her own jewelry, which she was 
not allowed to wear, and had to content herself 
with exhibiting, she began to wish that there 
was something about herself which should win 
the love of her schoolmates. 

She had made such an unpleasant impression 
upon them at first that they were not very 
anxious to make friends with her, but as they 
saw that she was really trying to make her- 
self pleasant, they were more willing to invite 


MAUDE. 223 

her to join in their games and share their 
amusements. 

She did not talk so much about her posses- 
sions, and tried to care more about others and 
their happiness. But all this was hard work. 
It is not an easy matter to be selfish and wilful 
and then all at once become thoughtful of 
others, and of their comfort; and many and 
many a night Maude sobbed herself to sleep, 
quite discouraged with the efforts she had to 
make to do things tliat seemed to come as a 
matter of course to the other girls. 

Mrs. Boardman had grown to love the lonely 
little girl, when she saw how much she needed 
a friend, and how grateful she was for the kind- 
ness which was shown her ; and sometimes she 
would ask Miss Chapman to let Maude spend 
the night with her, when she found that the 
little girl was very homesick and discouraged. 

Perliaps because she had never known before 
what it was to have a friend who really wanted 
to help her make the most of herself, Maude 
loved Mrs. Boardman with all her heart, and 
she really tried and kept on trying, so that she 
should not disappoint the one who took so much 
interest in her. 

Mrs. Boardman could see how the little girl 
improved from one week to another, and though 


224 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


there was still much room for improvement, and 
it might take months and perhaps years to undo 
the effect of Maude’s early training in selfish- 
ness, yet there was a great deal that was very 
sweet and lovable in her character, hidden away 
under all the dross ; and Mrs. Boardman knew 
that if she kept on trying to improve, some 
day she would be a very sweet girl, and one who 
would win love from all around her. 

Every hour Maude learned something that 
was of use to her, for she had much more to 
learn than many of her schoolmates. In the 
first place she had always thought that work 
was something that belonged only to servants, 
and that a lady would not know how to do any- 
thing about the house ; but here Miss Chapman 
insisted upon each little girl’s caring for her 
own room, and insisted that the work should be 
carefully and well done, and the general feeling 
among the girls was that it was something to be 
proud of when their rooms won commendation 
from Mrs. Boardman. 

Maude no longer felt that it was a disgrace to 
be obliged to make her own bed, but on the con- 
trary, she took a great deal of pride in making 
it so well that when Mrs. Boardman went around 
to look at the rooms after the girls had gone 
into school, she could find nothing to reprove. 


MAUDE. 225 

but on the contrary could leave a little card 
with “ Good ” upon the pillow. 

Once a week there was a cooking-class which 
the girls attended in turn, and Maude was as 
proud as any of the other girls could have been 
upon the day when she made a plate of nice 
light biscuit all by herself, for supper ; and she 
looked forward with a good deal of pleasure to 
the time when she should show her mother how 
much she could do. 

Miss Chapman did not believe in education 
making little girls useless at home, but she tried 
to have them taught practical things as well as 
the more ornamental ones, for she wanted them 
to grow up useful as well as accomplished 
women. 

So the scholars learned to sweep and dust, 
to make beds, and bread and cake, while they 
studied their other lessons ; and when they went 
home in vacation times their mothers found 
them very useful little maids. 

Maude had not made any special friends 
among the girls. In her time out of school 
hours she stayed with Mrs. Boardman as much 
as she could, and her teacher was very kind 
about letting the little girl come to her room 
whenever she wanted to, and curl up in the 
big rocking-chair and watch Mrs. Boardman as 
15 


226 


KUBY AT SCHOOL. 


she sat by the window in her low sewing-chair 
and did the piles of mending which accumulated 
every week. 

The boxes of cake and candy which Maude 
had been so anxious that her mother should 
send her were not permitted to any of the 
scholars at Miss Chapman’s school. Perhaps 
one reason why they were so well, and the 
doctor seldom, if ever, paid any of them a visit, 
was because they ate such good, wholesome food 
and were not allowed to spoil their appetites 
with candy. 

Once a week they had candy, and then it 
seemed all the nicer because it was such a treat. 
A little old woman kept a candy store some little 
distance down the street, and the girls were 
allowed to go down there Saturday mornings 
and buy five cents’ worth of candy. This little 
old woman was quite famous among the scliolars 
for her molasses cocoanut candy, and they al- 
most always bought that kind of candy. 

As Kuby said to her Aunt Emma after she 
had been to school a few Saturdays, — 

“ It looks very nice, and is good, and then 
you get more of it for five cents than any other 
kind of candy, so it is really the best kind to 
buy, you see.” 

The old woman always expected Miss Chap- 


MAUDE. 


227 


man’s 3"oung ladies every Saturday, and had nice 
little bags of candy all tied up, ready for them, 
so that she should not keep them waiting ; and 
if the day was stormy, and she knew that they 
would not be allowed to go out, she took a cov- 
ered basketful of candy-bags up to the school, 
that they might make their purchases there. 

Saturday morning was a very pleasant one at 
school. There was a short study hour, which 
was really a half-hour, and then the girls wrote 
letters home, or visited each other in their 
rooms. 

In the afternoon they put on their very best 
dresses, and had a nicer supper than usual, and 
almost every Saturday evening the minister and 
his wife came and took that meal with them. 

He was not at all like the minister Ruby had 
known at home all her life, and whenever she 
looked at him, she wondered how it was possible 
for so young a man to be a minister. He never 
asked any of the girls whether they knew the 
catechism or not, and Ruby was quite disap- 
pointed at this, though I do not think any of 
the other girls wanted to say it. Ruby was so 
sure that she knew it perfectly, even the longest 
and hardest answers, that she was always glad 
of a chance to show how well she knew it. 
Perhaps if the others had known it as well. 


228 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


they might have been willing to say it, but as 
it was, they were quite satisfied that he never 
asked for it; and Maude, who did not know a 
word of it, and who had all she could do to 
learn what her teachers' required of her, would 
have been quite discouraged, I am afraid, if the 
recitation of the catechism each week had been 
added to her other tasks. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


SUNDAY AT SCHOOL.' 

Sunday morning the scholars slept nearly an 
hour longer than usual, and this was looked upon 
as a great treat, particularly in the winter months 
when it was scarcely light before seven. It 
seemed very early rising to get up by lamp-light, 
and all the girls were quite ready to take the 
extra hour of sleep upon Sunday mornings. 

After breakfast, which was always nicer than 
upon other days, when they had made their rooms 
tidy, and prepared themselves for church, all 
but their coats and hats. Miss Chapman called 
them down to the school-room to study a Bible 
lesson for half an hour. 

By this time the church bell would begin to 
ring, and they would go up to their rooms and 
get ready to start, and then the little procession 
would start out just as they did when they went 
to walk, only, instead of one of the girls walking 
at the head. Miss Chapman and Miss Ketchum 
were there, and the girls followed them. 


230 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


It was a very short walk, just across the street, 
so it was not necessary to start until tlie second 
bell had begun to ring. The girls would have 
been very glad if it had been a little longer walk, 
but it only took two or three minutes to walk 
down to the crossing at the corner, and then go 
across to the pretty vine-covered church. 

Miss Chapman had one rule that none of the 
girls liked at all, and yet it was one for which 
they were all very glad when they had grown 
older, and did not have to follow it unless they 
wished. 

It was her rule that the girls should all listen 
very attentively to the sermon, remember the 
text, and the chapter from which it was taken, 
and then when they came home they were re- 
quired, after dinner, to spend an hour in writing 
down all that they could remember of the ser- 
mon. At first Ruby was sure that she never 
could remember anything to write down after- 
wards, and tliough she listened as hard as she 
could, and did her very best to remember, all 
that she could possibly keep in her head was the 
text, and one sentence, the sentence with which 
Mr. Morsell began his sermon ; but she soon 
found that by listening very closely and trying 
to remember, she grew able to remember much 
more. 


SUNDAY AT SCHOOL. 


231 


Some of the older girls, who had been with 
Miss Chapman for two and three years, and were 
accustomed to this practice, could write down a 
really good epitome of the sermon, and once in a 
while a scholar did so well that Miss Chapman 
would send her work over to the minister, and 
the next time he came to tea he would compli- 
ment her for it ; and that not only pleased the 
scholar, but made all the others determine to do 
so well that their extracts, too, should be sent 
over to him sometimes. 

Mr. Morsell always remembered what young 
hearers he had, and he never failed to put some- 
thing in his sermon that even Ruby and Maude 
could understand and remember, if they tried 
hard enough ; so it was a great deal easier for 
them than if he had preached only for grown-up 
people. 

Each girl had a blank-book, and after Miss 
Chapman had looked her extracts over, she re- 
quired the scholars to copy these extracts into 
their blank-books. 

Ruby was quite pleased when she found that 
each Sunday she could remember more and more, 
and that where five lines contained all that she 
remembered of the first sermon, it soon took two 
pages to hold all that she could write. 

She was glad that she had to copy it in this 


232 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


blank-book, for then she could take it home with 
her at Christmas, and show it to her father and 
mother and Ruthy ; and everything that she did 
she always wanted to show them, or tell them 
about, for she never forgot the dear ones. Maude 
was learning to remember nicely, too. She was 
not at all a dull little girl. It was only that she 
had not been accustomed to use her mind when 
she came to the school, and it had taken her 
some little time to learn to keep her thoughts 
upon anything, and really study. She was quite 
pleased when she found that in this exercise of 
memory she was doing quite as well as any of 
the new scholars, and better than four or five 
of them could do. 

After a while, when the girls grew older, and 
finished learning all that they could study with 
Miss Chapman, and some, perhaps, did not go 
to school any more, they were very glad that 
they had learned to listen so attentively ; for any 
one of those little girls who practised listening 
to the sermon and remembering all they could 
of it, and then strengthened their memory by 
writing it down afterwards, found that they had 
a great deal to be glad of in this training. Even 
after they grew up, they were so in the habit of 
listening attentively that they never heard a 
sermon without being able to remember a great 


SUNDAY AT SCHOOL. 


233 


deal of it ; so their memories were not like sieves, 
through which a great deal could run, but in which 
very little, or perhaps nothing, would remain. 

But they did not realize then how good it was 
for them, for even grown-up people very seldom 
realize that, and so the girls grumbled a good 
deal sometimes, when they had to sit down on 
Sunday afternoon and write out what they could 
remember. 

There was one thing, however, which the girls 
soon discovered. It did not make it any easier 
to grumble about it, and the sooner one set to 
work in good earnest, the more one was likely 
to remember of the sermon, and the sooner the 
task was accomplished ; and they had the rest of 
the afternoon to themselves until Bible-class 
hour just before tea-time. 

Then Miss Chapman heard them say the 
catechism, and talked to them and heard them 
recite the Bible lesson which they had studied 
that morning. The time between writing the 
sermon and the Bible class was always a pleas- 
ant time to the scholars. They sat in one an- 
other’s rooms and talked, or if it was a pleasant 
day they went out and walked about the garden. 
While Miss Chapman would not allow any loud 
laughing nor playing on this day, yet she was 
glad to have it one which the girls would enjoy 


234 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


as much as possible, and would look back upon 
with pleasure. 

There was always some special dainty for tea, 
and then, after tea, the girls all gathered around 
the piano in the parlor, and Miss Emma played 
hymns for them, and they sang until it was time 
to go to bed. They all enjoyed this. Even the 
girls who could not sing very well themselves 
liked to hear the others sing, and they were 
sorry when the old clock in the hall struck the 
bed-time hour. 

Every Sunday seemed such a long step 
towards the holidays when they should go home 
and see their fathers and mothers again. While 
after the first week or two none of the girls were 
homesick, and all were very happy, yet there 
was not one of them who had not a little square 
of paper near the head of her bed, with as many 
marks upon it as there were days before vaca- 
tion began, and every morning the first thing 
they did was to scratch one of these marks off. 
So Sunday seemed a long step ahead when they 
looked back over seven days that had passed. 

Agnes and Ruby generally spent the leisure 
part of Sunday afternoon with Miss Ketchum. 
She was very fond of the little girls, and liked 
to have them come and see her, so they had a 
very pleasant time in her room. 


SUNDAY AT SCHOOL. 


235 


They would save their bags of candy, instead 
of eating them on Saturday, and Miss Ketchum 
would have a nice little plain cake, of which her 
little visitors were very fond, and then they 
would take down the dishes and have a very 
nice time. 

While they were enjoying the good things 
Miss Ketchum would read to them, or they 
would see which could tell her the most about 
the extracts they had written from the sermon. 
They had such pleasant times with her that they 
were always sorry when the bell rang for Bible 
class, and they had to say good-by and run 
away. 

Altogether, Sunday was a very happy day at 
Miss Chapman’s, not only to Ruby and Agnes, 
but to all the other scholars, and they were 
always ready to welcome it. 


CHAPTER XXIIL 


GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS. 

All the girls had a great deal of Christmas 
preparation. In the evenings they were busy 
making their Christmas presents for their friends 
at home, and Ruby was delighted when her Aunt 
Emma taught her how to knit wristlets. She 
was very proud when she had finished the first 
pair for her mother. They had pretty red edges 
and the rest was knitted of chinchilla wool. 

Perhaps you would laugh at Ruby if I should 
tell you quite how much she admired them. 
When she first began to knit slie wished that 
she need not practise nor study nor do anything 
else, she enjoyed her new occupation so much ; 
and she carried her wristlet around in her 
pocket, wrapped up in a piece of paper, so that 
it should not become soiled, and every little 
while she would take it out and look at it 
lovingly. 

She could imagine her mother’s surprise and 
pleasure when she should give them to her, and 
tell her that her little girl had knitted every 


GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS. 237 

stitch of them for her. There were a great 
many stitches, in the wristlets, and before the 
first pair was finished Ruby had grown very 
tired of knitting; but she was willing to per- 
severe when she thought of the pleasure it 
would be to give them to her mother as her 
very own Christmas gift to her. 

The pair she was making for her father did not 
take her nearly so long to make, even although 
they were larger, for she had learned to knit so 
much more quickly ; and she was quite proud of 
the way in which the needles flashed in her busy 
little fingers. 

Ruby had brought her doll to school with 
her, and she found her great company when 
she went up to her room, although she was 
such a busy little maiden that she did not 
find much time in which to play with her. 
Sometimes she would take her over to Miss 
Ketchum’s .room and leave her for a few days, 
so that when she went there for a little visit 
she would find her doll waiting for her, but 
generally Ruby had so many other things in 
which she was interested that she did not find 
time to play with her child. 

But she was making something for Ruthy’s 
Christmas present in which she needed her 
doll’s help very much. Aunt Emma was show- 


238 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


ing Ruby how to crochet the dearest little baby 
sacque and hood, for a gift to Ruthy, and as 
Ruthy’s doll was just exactly the same size as 
Ruby’s, Ruby could try the sacque upon her 
own doll every now and then, and be quite sure 
that she was getting it the right size. 

It was a pretty little white sacque with a rose- 
colored border, and it was so very pretty that 
Ruby made up her mind that after Christmas, 
when she should not have so much to do, she 
would make another just like it for her own 
doll. The hood was made to match the sacque, 
and Ruby could hardly wait for Christmas to 
come when she thought of the happiness her 
gifts would give. She was impatient to hear 
Ruthy exclaim with admiration over the beauti- 
ful sacque and hood, and to see how proud her 
father and mother would be when she slipped 
the wristlets upon their hands, and told them 
that she had taken every stitch for them with 
her own fingers. 

But besides these home preparations, there 
was to be a little entertainment given at Christ- 
mas by the scholars, to which some of the people 
of the village were always invited, besides the 
friends of the day-scholars, and those of the 
boarding-scholars who could com^ This en- 
tainment was given the evening before the girls 


GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS. 2B9 

left for their Christmas holidays, so very often 
their parents came a day earlier to take them 
home, in order to be present at this enter- 
ment. 

It was given to show the improvement of the 
scholars during the term, and all the girls had 
some part to take in it. 

To some of them this was a great trial, but 
Ruby delighted in showing off, and she was per- 
fectly happy when she found that she was to 
take part three times. It added to her pleas- 
ure to have her father write that he would 
surely be there, for he was coming to bring her 
home, as Aunt Emma was going somewhere else 
for her Christmas holidays. So Ruby practised 
and studied with all her might, as happy and 
as good a little girl as you could find anywhere, 
enjoying school-life more every day. 

Ruby was to play the bass part in a duet with 
one of the older girls, and she had taken lessons 
such a little while that this seemed a very great 
thing to her. She was always ready to practise, 
so that she should be sure to know her part per- 
fectly, and she went about the house humming 
the tune, until Aunt Emma declared laughingly 
that she fully expected to hear Ruby singing it 
in her sleep. 

Besides this. Ruby was to recite a piece alone. 


240 


EDBY AT SCHOOL. 


and to take part in a dialogue ; so you can see 
that she had quite a good deal to do. She 
would have been quite willing to do more, how- 
ever, and she looked forward very eagerly to 
the evening of the entertainment. 

The dialogue was quite a long one, and Ruby 
studied it every morning while she was getting 
dressed, pretending that her aunt and the stove 
were the other two characters in the piece. To 
be sure, neither of them said anything, for Aunt 
Emma was busy getting dressed, and the stove 
was silent, of course ; but Ruby knew what they 
should say, for she had studied the piece so 
much that she knew the other parts nearly as 
well as her own; so she said for them what 
should be said when their part came, and then 
repeated her own speeches. There was Vo 
danger that Ruby would not be fully prepared 
when the great evening came. 

It did not seem possible, now that she looked 
backward, that she had really been away from 
home so long. Each day had been so full of 
duties and pleasures, and had passed so rapidly, 
that they had gone almost before Ruby knew 
that they had commenced, and now there were 
only very few marks left to be scratched out 
upon the girls’ calendars. 

Ruby was very sorry for Agnes. Her mother 


GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS. 241 

lived so far away that it was not possible for 
her to go home until the long summer vacation 
came, so Agnes had to spend her Christmas 
at school. 

The teachers did all they could to make the 
day a happy one for her, and her mother sent 
her a box of presents, but still that was not of 
course anything like a home Christmas, and it 
generally made Agnes feel very badly when she 
heard the other girls talking about the good 
times they expected to have at Christmas. 

“ It is n’t only the parties and the Christmas 
trees and the good times,” she said to Ruby one 
day. “ It is being away from mother that is the 
hardest part of it all. I always put her picture 
on the table when I open the box and look at 
the presents she has sent me, and try to pre- 
tend that she is giving them to me ; but it is n’t 
of much use. I know all the time that she is 
hundreds of miles away, and that she wants to 
see me just as much as I want to see her.” 

It was just one week before Christmas that a 
very beautiful idea came into Ruby’s mind, and 
she was so pleased that she jumped up and spun 
around like a top, and caught Agnes by the waist 
and made her spin around, too, until both the 
little gir? tumbled down in a heap on the floor. 

“ Why, Ruby, are you crazy ? ” asked Agnes, 

IR 


242 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


laughingly. They had been sitting before the 
fire in Miss Ketchum’s room, eating chestnuts 
and talking about the evening of the entertain- 
ment, and both of the girls had been quiet for a 
little while, Agnes thinking how much she would 
like to have her mother at the school that night, 
and Ruby thinking of the pleasure with which 
she would watch her father while she was recit- 
ing her piece, when all at once she jumped up in 
this state of excitement. 

“ What is the matter ? ” asked Agnes again ; 
but Ruby would n’t tell her. “ It is just the most 
beautiful idea in all the world,” she exclaimed ; 
‘‘ but it is something about you, Agnes, and I 
don’t want to tell you until I am quite sure how 
it is going to turn out. No, you need n’t ask me. 
I shall not tell you one single word of it. I can 
keep a secret when I want to, and I don’t mean 
to tell you this one. I will only tell you that if 
it turns out all right you will like it as much as I 
do, I think. Oh, I am so full of it that I must 
go over and tell Aunt Emma about it ; but you 
must not ask me to tell you, for indeed I will 
not.” 

And Ruby did not, although you may imagine 
that Agnes was very curious to know what it 
could be over Avhich Ruby was so excited, and 
which concerned herself. 


GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS. 243 

Ruby would only answer, “ Wait and see.” 

It had occurred to her that perhaps her mother 
would be willing to let her invite Agnes to come 
home with her for her Christmas holidays. Ruby 
knew that her mother was very much better 
now, and she was almost sure that she would 
not feel as if company would tire her too much. 
Ruby and Agnes had been such friends, and 
Ruby had told Agnes so much about her home 
and mother and Ruthy, that she was sure that 
next best to going to her own home and seeing 
her own mother, would be going to Ruby’s home 
and spending Christmas with Ruby’s mother. 

Aunt Emma thought that it was a very nice 
plan, and Ruby wrote that very afternoon to ask 
her mother about it. 

It seemed to the impatient little girl as if tlie 
answer would never come ; and every da}^ she 
watched when the mail came to see if there was 
a letter for her ; but in three days it came, and 
she was delighted to find that a little letter was 
enclosed for Agnes, giving her a very cordial 
invitation to come home with Ruby to spend her 
Cliristmas holidays. 

Ruby’s mother was very much pleased with 
the idea, and glad that her little daughter had 
thought of inviting her lonely schoolmate home 
with her ; and if anything could have made Ruby 


244 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


happier .than she was already, it "was her mother’s 
approval of her plan. 

You may be sure that Agnes was delighted. 
It seemed almost too good to be true, at first ; 
and when she read the kind letter from Ruby’s 
mother, and Miss Chapman gave her permission 
to accept the invitation, she began to look forward 
to the holidays quite as eagerly as any of the 
other girls. 

Besides the pleasure with which Ruby looked 
forward to Christmas on her own account, she 
looked forward to the pleasure she expected to 
give others, and I need not tell you that that is 
the secret of the greatest happiness in all the 
wide world. And so the days flew on, each one 
bringing the joyous home-going nearer. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


FINIS. 

There came a morning when the very last 
mark was scratched off the calendars that hung 
in every room in the school, and the girls knew 
that, long as it had been in coming, the last day 
before the holidays had really come. 

It was a delightful day, for there was so much 
pleasant preparation going on. 

“ It is just lovely to have such a higgledy- 
piggledy day,” Ruby exclaimed with a rapturous 
sigh of delight. There was a rehearsal in the 
morning, to make sure that all the girls were 
ready for the evening’s entertainment ; and some 
of tlie girls who were not quite perfect in their 
pieces of music or their recitations, had to study 
and practise a little while ; but beyond that, there 
was nothing but the most delightful chaos of 
packing trunks, laying out dresses, and talking 
over plans for the next day. Every little while 
some one would ring the bell, and the girls would 
rush to see which happy girl was greeting her 
father or mother. 


246 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


Ruby’s father came about noon, and she was 
very much surprised, for she had not expected 
liim until afternoon, on the same train in which 
she had come. 

When she heard there was a gentleman down- 
stairs to see Miss Ruby Harper, she rushed down- 
stairs so fast that she nearly tumbled down, and 
ran into the parlor, quite sure that she would 
find her father’s arms waiting to clasp her. 

For a moment she did not see any one else, 
and she fairly cried, very much to her surprise, 
she was so glad to see her dear father and feel 
herself nestled in his arms. Then some one 
said, — 

“ Don!t you see me. Ruby ? ” and Ruby looked 
around to find Ruthy, all smiles, watching to see 
her surprise. 

“Why, Ruthy Warren!” — and Ruby fairly 
screamed with delight. “ I never, never thought 
of your coming. Why, it is too splendid for 
anything 1 How did you ever come to think of 
it, and why did n’t you tell me, and are n’t you 
glad you came ? ” 

“I never thought of it at all,” Ruthy an- 
swered. “ It was all your papa’s thought, and 
I never knew I was coming till last night when 
he came over to ask mamma if I could come 
with him. I could hardly sleep, I was so glad, 


FINIS. 


247 


for it seemed so long to wait to see you, and it 
was such fun to come to travel home with 
you.” 

Perhaps there was a happier little girl in the 
school than Ruby that day, but I do not know 
how it could have been possible. 

She was going home the next day to see her 
dear mother. She had her papa and her little 
friend Ruthy with her, to sympathize in her joy 
and be proud of her success that evening, and 
when she should go away in the morning she 
would not have to leave her new friend Agnes 
alone at school, but she would belong to the 
happy party that were going to have a delight- 
ful Christmas at Ruby’s home. 

Altogether I do not know what could have 
been added to her pleasure. The day passed 
very quickly, and Ruby took her papa and 
Ruthy for a long walk in the afternoon to show 
them everything pretty in the village. Her 
tongue went like a mill-wheel, for she had so 
much to tell them that she could not get the 
words out fast enough. 

At last it was supper-time, and then began 
the important operation of dressing for the 
evening. The girls might wear their hair an}^ 
way they liked this last evening, and Maude was 
delighted when she looked in the glass and saw 


248 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


her hair floating about her shoulders once more. 
Maude’s mother was not coming till the next 
day, so she was not quite as happy as Ruby 
was. 

The girls were all very much excited by the 
time the company began to arrive. The long 
school-room had seats placed in one end of it 
for the audience, and at the other end were 
seats for the scholars, for the teachers, and the 
piano upon which the girls were to play. 

Ruby was fairly radiant with delight when the 
moment to begin came, and she was not troubled 
by any of the doubts that the other girls had 
that they might fail. She was quite sure that 
she knew her pieces so perfectly that she could 
not possibly forget anything ; and company never 
frightened her, it only stimulated her to do her 
best. 

She was so glad her papa was there, for it was 
so delightful to look into his pleased, proud face 
wdien slie recited her piece. She could not look 
at him during the dialogue, but she was quite 
sure that his eyes were following her, and the 
moment she had finished she looked at him and 
saw how pleased his face was, and how proud he 
looked. 

Then came the duet. Agnes and Ruby were 
to play this together, and they had practised it 


FINIS. 


249 


so much that they were both sure that they 
could play it without the music. If any one 
had told Ruby that in this very piece she would 
make the only mistake of the evening, she 
would not have believed it possible, and yet 
that was the thing that really happened. 

The first bar Agnes had to play alone, then 
she struck a chord with Ruby and then had a 
little run of several notes by herself. Ruby felt 
very grand when the duet was announced and 
she walked to the piano with Agnes and seated 
herself. She was sorry that she was on the side 
away from the audience, because then her father 
could not see her quite as well, but then he was 
so tall that perhaps he could see past Agnes and 
watch her. 

They were both ready, and Aunt Emma stood 
by the piano with the little black b^ton with 
which she beat time. 

Ruby counted softly under her breath so she 
should be sure not to make a mistake. Agnes 
played her first notes, then Ruby came in 
promptly with her chord, and then, oh. Ruby 
wished that the floor might open and let her 
go through into the cellar, — she forgot that she 
had to wait a bar for Agnes to play her little run, 
and began on her bass. 

It was Agnes’s quick wit that saved Ruby 


250 


RUBY AT SCHOOL. 


from mortification that she would have found it 
hard ever to forget. 

“ Keep right on, Ruby. Don’t stop for any- 
thing,” she whispered softly. 

Ruby’s first impulse had been to take her 
hands off the keys, and perhaps run away as 
she liked to do when things went wrong; but 
Agnes’ whisper reassured her, and she kept 
steadily on. Agnes left the run out, and 
started in with the air, and so no one but Miss 
Emma, Agnes, and Ruby knew that any one had 
made a mistake. Of course it would have been 
prettier if the little run that Agnes had practised 
so faithfully for weeks might have been played 
wher^ it belonged, but it did not really spoil the 
piece, and Ruby breathed a sigh of relief when 
the leaf was turned over, and she found that 
everything was going smoothly. 

“ You were so good, Agnes,” she whispered, 
when they went back to their seats. “ I thought 
that I might just as well stop as not, wlien I 
had made such a perfectly dreadful mistake. I 
wonder if every one knew it.” 

“ No, I am sure no one suspected it,” Agnes 
returned comfortingly. “ No one but your aunt 
knew, and she could see how it happened, and 
I am sure she liked it a great deal better than 
having us stop and start all over again.” 


FINIS. 


251 


All the rest of the evening’s exercises passed 
off very smoothly ; the girls presented Miss 
Chapman with a handsome inkstand, and she 
expressed her approval of their faithfulness in 
study during the fall months, and then pre- 
sented the prizes, and tlien came the part of 
the entertainment that most of the girls liked 
the best of all, — the refreshments. 

Ruby was not at all sleepy when bed-time 
came, and she wished that she could start for 
home at once without waiting for morning to 
come, but sure as she was that she should not 
go to sleep all night, but that she should lie 
awake and talk to Ruthy, she had hardly put 
her head on her pillow before her eyes closed 
and she was sound asleep. 

The next thing she knew was that her aunt 
was trying to waken her, and telling her that 
they must hurry to be ready for the train, as 
they had several things to do before they could 
start. 

It did not take long to waken Ruby then, you 
may be sure. 

And so she went home again, to find her dear 
mother looking almost as well as ever, and so 
glad to see her dear little daughter again; and 
she was just as happy as Ruby herself when she 
saw the pretty book that Ruby had won as the 


252 


EUBY AT SCHOOL. 


prize for deportment. That assured her that 
Ruby had indeed faithfully kept her promise of 
trying to be good, and that she had succeeded. 

Such a happy home-coming as it was; and 
Agnes had so warm a welcome that she felt 
almost as if she belonged to the family. 

But we must say good-by to Ruby here, and 
leave her enjoying the happy holidays which she 
had earned by faithful study, by trying to please 
her teachers in every way, and by trying to 
make the very best of herself and make others 
happy ; and I am sure when you say good-by 
to Ruby this time, you will agree with me that 
she is a far more lovable little girl than she 
was when she tried first of all to please Ruby 
herself. 


THE END. 


720 











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